American energy dominance gives us the power to fend off enemies and rescue Venezuela

During his remarks at the World Economic Forum, President Donald Trump re-emphasized his commitment to American energy dominance and the role that Venezuela can play. As the founder of one of America’s largest privately held oil and gas companies, my company is ready to play our part, which will mean lower prices and increased security for our citizens and brighter days for the people of Venezuela. Both are worthy and achievable goals.

President Trump set the wheels of this plan in motion when he re-assembled America’s leading oil and gas executives at the White House. The purpose was strengthening American interests in the Western Hemisphere after Nicolás Maduro had been removed from power. Venezuela is home to the world’s largest supply of crude oil reserves.

By toppling Maduro and inviting American energy leaders to the table to discuss the rebuilding of its infrastructure, Trump sent a powerful message to China and other hostile foreign actors: mess around in our backyard at your own peril.

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Trump not only understands that energy dominance means global dominance but is willing to act on it. At the same time, Venezuela deserves better than the quarter-century of corruption they have endured, and the American energy industry can help lift an impoverished country into a brighter future. 

While Venezuela is blessed with the world’s largest supply of crude oil reserves, its output of 1 million barrels a day is a pittance of what it could be. As U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil can only “become a resource with technology, with capital, with rule of law and a system of governance that encourages the harvesting of those resources to make a better world.” 

My home state of Texas produces 6.3 million barrels of crude on any given day thanks to the hard work of nearly half a million oil and gas workers in our state. Venezuela’s industry has fallen into a state of ruin because of its corrupt and illegitimate political leaders, and its citizens are paying the price. 

TRUMP’S ENERGY DOMINANCE REWRITES THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE AFTER BIDEN DRAWDOWNS

Yet countries without our tremendous natural resources have come to rely on Venezuelan oil to power their own countries. China, for example, is home to 1.4 billion people, and produces around 4 million barrels of oil per day. Its demand far exceeds domestic output, forcing a reliance on other forms of energy like coal. China is the world’s largest importer of oil. More than half of Venezuelan oil exports go to China, often under flagless “shadow fleets” to avoid global sanctions.  

Toppling Maduro dealt an immediate blow to China’s energy supply and international standing. 

Finally, let us not lose sight of the people of Venezuela. Under Maduro and former President Hugo Chavez, the nation’s poverty rate has spiked to nearly 90%. Roughly one in four of the 32 million population have been forced from their homes. Food, education, healthcare and necessities are out of the question for many. 

‘LANDMAN’ STAR GETS SEAT AT THE TABLE IN TRUMP-ERA ENERGY PUSH AS HOLLYWOOD MEETS THE OIL PATCH

All this misery in spite of the nation’s abundant natural resources, which have been mismanaged and abused by a corrupt, illegitimate and evil regime. For proof of socialism’s failures, look no further than Caracas.

Trump not only understands that energy dominance means global dominance, but is willing to act on it. 

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The critics casting doubt on the path forward in Venezuela are the same people who thought it was fool’s gold to go to Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. The conditions were too inhospitable to ever make the investment worthwhile, they said. Today, Prudhoe Bay is one of the most significant energy resources in the United States.  

Our country has been fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit – the belief that possibilities are endless through grit, determination and hard work. We defied the odds to earn our independence, we expanded west, we put a man on the moon. We build companies from the ground up that provide good jobs, including nearly 11 million in the oil and gas industry.

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Under the pro-energy leadership of President Trump, Hilcorp Energy, as well as many others, both independent and major, stand at the ready to embark on this next chapter – one that can unlock more potential for America, provide new hope for Venezuela and put China on their heels. It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. 

Harvard gets schooled by China as America’s universities choose activism over excellence

Harvard isn’t supposed to be chasing. It’s supposed to be leading. 

Yet a new global ranking put out by Holland’s Leiden University — a measure of the number and importance of research publications — has Harvard down to third place worldwide, and both institutions ahead of it are Chinese. It gets worse for America: in the top 20, Harvard and the University of Michigan are the only U.S. universities. China takes 16 of the top 20 slots. 

Unlike many such university lists, this ranking isn’t a reputational beauty contest, but a statistical analysis based on publication data. In other words, it’s one way of measuring what a research university is supposed to do: produce serious scholarship at scale. 

So, if the most famous university in the world is sliding — and if China is dominating the top of the table — we should stop handwaving about “globalization” and start asking what, exactly, has gone wrong in American academia. 

HARVARD STUDENT SAYS POLITICAL BIASES ON CAMPUS ARE ‘SYSTEMATIC’ AFTER ALAN GARBER ADMITS FACULTY ‘WENT WRONG’ BY PUSHING BELIEFS IN THE CLASSROOM

The answer is not that Americans suddenly got dumber. It’s that our universities have become less serious. 

The center of gravity on many campuses has shifted in recent years from truth-seeking, merit and education to DEI, identity and activism. That dynamic shows up everywhere that matters for research production: hiring, teaching and the basic culture of inquiry. 

Hiring increasingly rewards ideological compliance rather than intellectual excellence. Diversity statements and “commitment” litmus tests have become routine. Whole searches are designed to narrow the acceptable range of viewpoints and methodologies. When a university hires activists who happen to hold PhDs instead of scholars who happen to hold opinions, it should not be surprised when scholarship suffers. 

HARVARD PRESIDENT CRITICIZES FACULTY ACTIVISM, CLAIMS UNIVERSITY BRINGING OBJECTIVITY BACK TO CLASSROOM

Teaching has been reduced, in too many places, to therapeutic affirmation and political mobilization. Students get more indoctrination than instruction, producing graduates who aren’t equipped with the writing, numeracy and disciplinary rigor needed to power the next generation of research and innovation. 

Research culture has become timid and conformist. Entire categories of questions are treated as morally impermissible to even ask. But real research requires risk: contesting assumptions, poking sacred cows and following the evidence wherever it leads. A campus that punishes dissent will eventually punish discovery. 

And hovering over all of this is the growth of the diversicratic state: offices, trainings, compliance regimes, “bias response” systems and an endless paper trail that consumes money and time. Universities can call it “inclusion” all they want; functionally, it’s overhead, which is the enemy of productivity. In a previous Fox News piece, I argued that elite American institutions won’t just fix themselves because the incentives inside these places run toward ideology and away from excellence. 

Meanwhile, China has been building research capacity like a state project — because it is one. It funds labs, scales programs, recruits talent and measures success in outputs that translate into technological and geopolitical power.  

HARVARD DEAN REMOVED AFTER ANTI-WHITE, ANTI-POLICE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS RESURFACED

Even 10 years ago, this contrast was stark. In the 2015 Leiden rankings, U.S. institutions dominated the top 20, with MIT, Harvard and Caltech at the top. That’s not ancient history, but within the careers of almost all current university officials. 

At the same time, institutional leaders that lecture Americans about “democracy” have been disturbingly casual about foreign cash, which typically comes with strings. 

The federal government has repeatedly had to investigate universities for failures to disclose foreign gifts and contracts. In 2020, for example, the Department of Education investigated Harvard and Yale over potential failures to report large sums of foreign funding; Department of Education (DoE) records showed billions in foreign gifts from countries including Qatar and China. Last April, an executive order intended to remedy foreign influence noted that DoE investigations led universities to disclose $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign funds.  

And it’s not just money. U.S. law enforcement and congressional investigators have warned for years about programs designed to exploit America’s open research environment. The FBI describes Chinese “talent plans” as often incentivizing one-way transfers of research and intellectual property, sometimes through undisclosed affiliations and contracts. A Senate investigation similarly detailed how China’s talent recruitment programs were designed to extract research and expertise from the United States to advance China’s national goals.  

The bottom line is simple: America’s universities are being outcompeted abroad while being hollowed out at home. If we want to reclaim research leadership, we need to reclaim the university’s purpose by doing at least four things: 

Research culture has become timid and conformist. Entire categories of questions are treated as morally impermissible to even ask. 

• Abolish DEI bureaucracies and end ideological litmus tests in hiring and promotion. No more compelled “statements.” No more identity-based preferences disguised as “equity.” Merit, rigor and accomplishment should be the criteria.
• Restore serious education — not activist programming — as the core mission. Students should be taught how to think, not what to chant.

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• Defend academic freedom and viewpoint diversity as prerequisites for discovery. A university that can’t tolerate disagreement can’t generate breakthroughs.

• Get tough on foreign influence: transparency, enforcement and bright lines. If universities want public money and public trust, they should disclose foreign gifts and contracts fully and police conflicts aggressively.

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Harvard’s slip in the Leiden ranking isn’t a quirky statistic, but a warning light. China is surging because it’s focused on research, development and education. America is slipping because our universities have too often swapped those priorities for DEI bureaucracy, identity politics, and activism. 

We can reverse this. But first we have to admit we have a problem. 

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LEE CARTER: 45% of Americans calling themselves ‘independent’ aren’t independent at all – they’re just angry

Here’s what we’re not saying out loud: independent voters aren’t independent at all. They’re just angry.

Forty-five percent of Americans now identify as political independents. That’s a record. It beat the 43% we saw in 2023. But here’s the thing — these people aren’t sitting in some enlightened middle ground. They’re out of the fray because both parties have let them down so badly that rejecting the label feels like the only honest option left.

This isn’t about ideology. This is rage dressed up as a polling category.

And it’s remaking American politics in real time.

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Look at the actual numbers: Democrats and Republicans both poll in the low 30s for approval. Both of them. That’s not a fight — that’s two teams losing to an empty field.

Seventy-three percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the political system itself. That’s not frustration. That’s people withdrawing consent. That’s a legitimacy crisis.

Here’s what matters: these voters don’t hate politics. They hate how politics is actually done right now. They’re not looking for someone to manage the system better. They’re looking for someone to blow it all up and build something radically different.

RECORD NUMBER OF AMERICANS IDENTIFY AS POLITICAL INDEPENDENTS, REJECTING 2 MAJOR PARTIES, POLL FINDS

Everybody keeps saying independents are swing voters. Moderates. The tie-breaker in elections.

Wrong.

Most independents hold strong views. They’re not middle-of-the-road people. They’re people. They’re people who gave up on their party because that party gave up on them.

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Democrats who couldn’t stomach the Democratic Party anymore. Republicans tired of what the Republican Party became.

They’re not available to be persuaded on incrementalism. They’re available to be inspired by a complete break from the past.

That door is wide open.

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When people get this angry, they don’t look for a compromise candidate. They look for a movement.

Movements need three things: a message, a messenger and a belief that this person or party will do things entirely differently.

This isn’t about ideology. This is rage dressed up as a polling category.

That combination is devastating to the establishment. Because it doesn’t matter if the message comes from the right or the left.

JAMES CARVILLE SAYS DEMOCRATS MUST REALIZE YOUTH ARE NOT A STATIC VOTING BLOC

A self-described socialist wins in arguably the most capitalist city in the world. A political outsider with no traditional credentials wins as a Republican not just once, but twice. Progressive activists push Democrats further left. Right-wing populists push the GOP further right.

What do these have in common? None of them were supposed to win. None fit the establishment playbook. None promised to work within the system. They all promised to disrupt it.

And the 45% of independents watched and saw something the establishment missed: proof that the rules could be broken. Proof that someone didn’t have to accept the traditional way of doing things. Proof that authenticity and disruption could actually beat polish and procedure.

THE FAR LEFT HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM, AND IT’S TURNING VOTERS OFF

So, they started looking for their own version of it.

Here’s what should terrify both party establishments: the hunger isn’t ideological. It’s structural.

It’s not about whether you’re a socialist or a nationalist. It’s about whether you’re going to operate by the rules of a system that already failed people, or reject the rules entirely.

YOUNG AMERICANS GIVE BIG THUMBS DOWN TO DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, TRUMP: POLL

Independents aren’t looking for Republicans or Democrats to do things slightly better. They’re looking for someone to do things completely differently. To make decisions based on what actually needs to happen, not what the party manual says should happen.

That message works on the left. It works on the right. It works anywhere people feel abandoned by institutions.

The populist wave isn’t about policy. It’s about permission.

IT’S NOT JUST THE ECONOMY — THIS IS HOW DEMOCRATS BEAT THE GOP ACROSS THE COUNTRY

Permission to believe that things don’t have to work the way they’ve always worked. Permission to think that someone outside the system might actually be better than someone inside it. Permission to vote your rage instead of your resignation.

And that permission is contagious.

Seventy-three percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the political system itself. That’s not frustration. That’s people withdrawing consent. That’s a legitimacy crisis.

The moment voters see it work — see an outsider actually win, see someone break the rules and survive — they start looking for it everywhere. They ask: “Who else is willing to blow this up? Who else actually gets how broken this is?”

AFFORDABILITY, DOGE AND THE LANGUAGE THAT CAPTURED AMERICAN POLITICS IN 2025

Establishment politicians offer more of the same with slightly different words.

Populist movements offer the feeling that everything is about to change. Guess which one people are choosing.

Now here’s the cutting part: the entire political establishment from both parties is equally vulnerable. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have figured out that the 45% have tasted something different. They’ve seen it work. They know what disruption actually looks like.

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So, they’re not going back to the old rules. They’re waiting for the next authentic messenger. The person who understands that the message isn’t “we’ll manage the system better.” The message is “the system needs to be rebuilt, and I’m genuinely willing to do it differently.” This is why populism keeps winning.

Not because it has better ideas. Because it offers something the establishment can’t: the genuine belief that this person isn’t trapped inside the broken machinery. That they’ll actually make decisions based on what needs to happen, not what the system says is possible.

When you’re part of an institution, you’re limited by that institution. When you’re outside it, you’re not. Voters can feel the difference between someone trying to work within the system and someone actually willing to blow it up.

DAVID MARCUS: DON’T BE SO SURE SOCIALISTS CAN’T WIN IN THE HEARTLAND

Right now, the only people offering to blow it up are the ones winning.

Here’s where the 45% are actually going:

They’re going toward any candidate or movement that can credibly claim they won’t play by the old rules. That’s it. That’s the entire appeal.

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It doesn’t matter if that person is a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn’t matter what specific policies they promise. What matters is that they’re not the establishment. That they’re authentically something new. That they’re willing to operate outside the machinery.

The party that produces that person next doesn’t just win an election. They capture a generation of voters who have already decided the old way is dead.

Now here’s the cutting part: the entire political establishment from both parties is equally vulnerable. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have figured out that the 45% have tasted something different. 

The other party becomes the museum of yesterday’s politics.

WHEN WE CALL EVERYTHING AN ‘ISM,’ WE STOP HEARING WHAT VOTERS ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT

The real story of the 45% isn’t about the middle. It’s about the hunger for authenticity and disruption overwhelming the traditional structures that contain politics.

It’s about voters saying: “We’re done. We want something completely different.”

And every establishment politician who offers “more of the same but better” only confirms what those voters already believe: the system is broken, and nobody inside it knows how to fix it.

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That’s the moment we’re living in.

And it’s just getting started.

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Go big, then go smart: Trump, ICE and the law. How to skip the left’s PR trap

The current obstruction and violence against federal agents trying to expel illegal aliens — committed by far-left activists and encouraged by left-wing politicians — is unacceptable.

In June 2025 in Los Angeles, agents carrying out due process against illegal aliens were assaulted. Mayor Karen Bass blamed federal enforcement for her city’s lawless protests, only ordering a curfew when dozens of businesses were looted.

In September, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, arresting many criminal illegal aliens in the face of violent protests with no support from Mayor Brandon Johnson or Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

WHITE HOUSE BLAMES DEMOCRATS FOR ICE VIOLENCE AS MINNEAPOLIS ERUPTS, INSURRECTION ACT THREAT LOOMS

Last October, a brawl occurred outside a Portland, Oregon ICE facility between Antifa and conservative activists. In Portland, officers shot two alleged members of Venezuela’s deadly Tren de Aragua gang who had attempted to run them over.

And we all know what happened in Minneapolis between an ICE agent and slain activist Renee Good on January 18. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz responded with a mix of falsehood and hyperbole. He ignored the fact the ICE agents were there to arrest illegal immigrants — usually highly dangerous recidivist criminals — pursuant to U.S. law.

Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Frey dialed up the rhetoric, encouraged protests, and supplied no effective state and city law enforcement assistance to DHS. The ingredients were there for another senseless death, and a week later, ICE agents shot Alex Pretti in another confused melee between protesters and federal agents.

President Donald Trump has options.

Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows him to deploy federal troops in instances of “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the U.S. government to protect federal agents and property.

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The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows him to deploy troops to “enforce the laws” of the United States or to “suppress rebellion” whenever “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” make it “impracticable” to enforce federal law in a state.

Immigration enforcement is a federal duty. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause means that federal law overrides state law. No governor or mayor, no matter how left-wing their own policies, can refuse to allow federal agents to do their duty.

Private citizens who impede federal agents (or local police) from doing their jobs are committing a felony. Noncitizens who do so carry the risk not only of criminal charges, but also of deportation resulting from a conviction.

WHAT WOULD TRUMP’S USE OF THE INSURRECTION ACT LOOK LIKE IN MINNESOTA?

The Trump administration must show that they will not be intimidated by mobs, nor threatened by grandstanding local politicians.

But once that point is made, DHS and ICE need to change gears to avoid falling into the obvious PR trap that’s been set for them. For ICE, arresting dangerous felons in tough neighborhoods in cities run by left-wing mayors is a triple threat.

First, agents must worry about the aliens themselves, who may be armed and dangerous. Second, they have to watch out for activist mobs impeding their vehicles, throwing things, assaulting officers and possibly worse. Third, they must travel in large numbers, knowing that local police are forbidden from, unwilling, or incapable of protecting them or coming to their aid.

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That means every operation is expensive, labor-intensive and high-risk. Everything is being filmed, from every angle. Every move by every officer is scrutinized by millions of armchair social-justice warriors, all now suddenly experts on forensics and tactics.

Trump’s base will support tough tactics, while the left will oppose any enforcement. Moderate and swing voters will be turned off by the inevitable injuries and deaths. If they watch or read legacy media, events will always be spun so that law enforcement looks bad, whatever the facts. And though his officials will rally round their agents, they will inevitably – and may already have – make mistakes in the heat of action.

So, what can ICE do differently in 2026?

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More workplace enforcement, and targeted arrests in unpredictable locations and times.

To help them, technology has advanced considerably since Trump’s first term, and AI is a force multiplier for routine investigations. ICE is spending “more than $300 million… for social-media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, license plate readers and services to find where people live and work,” according to Politico.

In using identification and surveillance technology, DHS faces opposition from not only open-border activists, but also conservatives with privacy concerns. But it’s a fight worth having.

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Facial recognition and social media-combing technology can be calibrated to tag only noncitizens in the DHS database.

ICE is also investing millions in so-called “skip tracing” technology, which can more easily identify illegal aliens while leaving American citizens alone.

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U.S. consulates overseas are using AI to screen the social media of visa applicants, and USCIS has announced a “new vetting center [that] will focus on powerful screening resources.” ICE should be able to access all that information, as well as that of other federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and Health and Human Services. Citizens’ data is protected by privacy laws, but noncitizens, particularly those here illegally, have no right to expect that one part of the government will keep information from another.

Trump needs to “go big” to show the likes of Walz and Frey how the Constitution works. Then DHS should go about the business of mass deportation with more deliberation and subtlety — for the long haul. Americans need to see law enforcement normalized once again.

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Mass immigration is economic warfare and few Americans understand why

The State Department’s recent decision to freeze visa processing for nationals from more than 75 countries — including Somalia, Iran and Russia — reflects a growing recognition in Washington: large-scale migration is no longer viewed solely as a humanitarian matter. It has become inseparable from questions of national security, economic stability and state capacity.

In today’s era of hybrid warfare and gray-zone conflicts, population movements can function as instruments of state influence, economic survival and political leverage — even when they are not formally declared or centrally coordinated. These dynamics often operate below the threshold of overt conflict while producing long-term, asymmetric effects on receiving countries.

For some origin states struggling with corruption, weak institutions or limited domestic opportunity, exporting labor has become a de facto economic lifeline. Rather than pursuing difficult internal reforms, these governments often tolerate or quietly incentivize outward migration.

Foreign nationals abroad then become a steady source of income through remittances: predictable, recurring and largely sanction-resistant flows that support both households and governments without requiring transparency or structural change.

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Importantly, no single remittance transfer is hostile. No individual immigrant constitutes an act of aggression. Many immigrants are seeking better lives for themselves and their families, and remittances often provide support to vulnerable communities abroad.

But modern conflict is not defined by individual intent. It is defined by aggregate effects. When mass migration and financial flows reach industrial scale and persist over time, they can impose real strategic pressures on host nations regardless of motivation.

The numbers illustrate the scope. According to World Bank estimates, officially recorded remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached roughly $685 billion in 2024, exceeding foreign direct investment and official development assistance in many cases. The United States is the world’s largest source of outbound remittances, with annual outflows estimated between $80 billion and $90 billion based on World Bank and Federal Reserve analyses of IMF balance-of-payments data.

FEDS LAUNCH OPERATION TARGETING MINNESOTA REFUGEES FOR POTENTIAL DEPORTATION AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION

Mexico alone received more than $64 billion in remittances last year — primarily from the U.S. — making it one of the country’s largest sources of foreign revenue. Independent analyses estimate that the U.S. loses at least $200 billion annually from remittances flowing out of the domestic economy, a figure that has risen significantly since 2019 and likely undercounts the true scale of transfers to the more than 130 countries receiving U.S. remittances.

In several countries, remittances now account for a significant share of national income. They exceed 20% of GDP in places like El Salvador and Haiti and reached approximately 25% of GDP in Somalia in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of State.

At this scale, remittances are no longer incidental household transfers; they become macroeconomic pillars. Governments that rely so heavily on these inflows face reduced incentives to facilitate the return of their citizens, including those unlawfully present in the United States, since large-scale repatriation would disrupt a critical revenue stream while reintroducing unemployment, fiscal strain and political pressure at home.

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As a result, some sending states have delayed travel documents, obstructed deportations or maintained permissive border policies that allow onward migration to continue. These actions may not always reflect deliberate hostility, but they do reinforce a system that prolongs and amplifies migration flows while externalizing domestic challenges.

Inside the United States, immigrant communities contribute in many ways. At the same time, heavy reliance on cheap labor in sectors such as construction, agriculture, food processing and services can suppress wages, distort competition and disadvantage American workers contributing over time to a more stratified labor market.

The same transnational networks of foreign terrorist and criminal organizations that facilitate large-scale migration can also overlap with illicit activity, including narcotics trafficking, money laundering and labor exploitation. Remittance channels and money-service businesses can be exploited to blend legitimate earnings with criminal proceeds, complicating enforcement and oversight.

Over the long term, economic dependence on foreign earnings combined with family ties abroad can create vulnerabilities to coercion or influence by origin governments, criminal organizations or other hostile actors. What begins as economic reliance can evolve into leverage.

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Through the lens of gray-zone conflict, remittances are not neutral financial transfers. They function as an asymmetric economic weapon, weakening U.S. labor markets, eroding the rule of law, and stabilizing regimes that act contrary to American interests. In gray-zone conflict, the rule of law itself becomes contested terrain.

For some origin states struggling with corruption, weak institutions or limited domestic opportunity, exporting labor has become a de facto economic lifeline.

Until weaponized mass migration and remittance dependency are recognized as elements of hybrid warfare, the United States will continue to finance systems that undermine its own sovereignty, economic resilience and social cohesion. Recognizing these aggregate effects as part of broader hybrid pressures does not impugn individual immigrants or ordinary remittances. It does, however, require acknowledging that scale matters.

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Until large-scale migration and remittance dependency are understood not merely as humanitarian or economic issues but as structural sources of economic warfare with strategic consequences, the United States will continue to subsidize dynamics that undermine its own labor standards, enforcement capacity and long-term security.

The contest is no longer confined to the border. It now plays out in labor markets, financial systems and the rule of law itself — domains where inaction carries consequences just as surely as action.

DAVID MARCUS: Anti-ICE agitators adopt Palestinian tactics, including martyrdom

The highly organized groups of agitators in Minneapolis, coordinated online to harass federal immigration agents (or anyone in an SUV it seems), have begun to employ tactics that any Israeli would recognize from decades of terrorism in their country.

The basic idea employed by both the Minnesota leftists and Hamas is to be as menacing as possible to authorities, including through acts of violence, and then, when the authorities strike back, to claim victimhood and martyrdom.

The tragic and needless death of Alex Pretti on Saturday morning was a terrible example of this phenomenon, one that, sadly and unconscionably, is being not only tolerated by Minnesota officials, but shamelessly encouraged.

The video of the shooting is vague, and it will take time and testimony to piece together the chain of events that led to Pretti’s death. But there are a few facts that seem clear, and they all point to an organized effort to antagonize and provoke law enforcement.

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Pretti left home Friday with a gun and extra ammunition and a plan to impede federal agents, which is exactly what he seemed to be doing when he allegedly intervened in the arrest of a suspect.

It is reasonable to assume that Pretti brought the gun and extra clips in anticipation of a potential confrontation with law enforcement. Can we know that for sure? No. Is it more likely than not? Absolutely.

The key point here is that no matter how much one may cherish the Second Amendment, nobody has a right to carry a gun while committing a felony, because to do so obviously puts everyone involved in harm’s way.

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Pretti’s defenders are disingenuously arguing that he was merely enjoying his rights as a gun owner while protesting, which would be perfectly fine, except there was no protest. Instead, he was involved in direct, illegal action to interfere with the feds.

This is why reports, from all sides, say that the crowd of hundreds did not gather until the shooting, which is exactly what happened in the case of Renee Good, who was also breaking the law with a deadly weapon, in that case, her SUV.

The tactic here is clear as day: organize hordes of people to harass federal agents all day, then cross the line into breaking the law in order to create a flash point, even if that means people have to die.

NOEM SAYS MINNEAPOLIS SUSPECT COMMITTED ‘DOMESTIC TERRORISM,’ ACCUSES WALZ, FREY OF INCITING VIOLENCE

This is straight out of the Palestinian playbook: cause just enough harm to provoke a reaction, then claim the reaction is disproportionate and evil, as in, “We just sent a suicide bomber, you used missiles, no fair!”

Let’s be clear, if you choose to fight with federal agents while they attempt to arrest a criminal and you bring a gun to that fight, you stand a very, very good chance of getting shot. 

But this was more than just a bad decision by Pretti. These types of actions have been cynically sanctioned by local elected officials such as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Gov. Tim Walz, and state Attorney General Keith Ellison.

MINNESOTA AGITATORS STALK, PELT BORDER PATROL AGENTS WITH FOOD AND SPIT AT GAS STATIONS, DHS SAYS

To date, none of them has firmly told citizens to stop organizing to impede federal agents. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the deaths are good politics for them in their one battle after another against President Donald Trump.

Frey, and Walz and Democrats in general, will hide behind the well-worn phrase “peaceful protest” but will never say exactly what peaceful protest includes.

Does peaceful protest include storming churches? Does it include using your car to hinder investigations? Does it include carrying a gun while committing a felony? They won’t address any of this, and the only reason why, not that makes any sense, is that they like the results.

MOB VIOLENCE IN MINNESOTA ISN’T FREE SPEECH — IT’S GROUNDS FOR THE INSURRECTION ACT

After the death of Good, conservatives pleaded with Democrats to tell their followers to stand down from illegally impeding agents. We warned, very specifically, that it would cause more death. But Frey and Walz just didn’t care.

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Sadly, we were right. 

One lesson that Israel has learned in fighting an enemy that wants to or is willing to die, is that the reaction to Israelis defending themselves is widespread moral outrage and condemnation. The other lesson is that they have to do it anyway.

This is the conundrum that the Trump administration finds itself in today. They could throw in the towel and leave the Twin Cities to their own devices, but doing so would be the end of federal law.

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No, the administration must hold firm, in the face of public outrage, in the face of midterm worries, and in the face of the shameless harassment of their agents.

It is up to Minnesotans if they wish to create more martyrs to their cause, and sadly, given the support for lawlessness seen from Frey and Walz, we can expect more, sooner rather than later.

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Trump’s penguin breaks the internet — and sends the left into a frenzy

What does a penguin have to do with the Crusades, Joan of Arc, President Donald Trump, Alexander the Great, masculinity, Aragorn, Luke Skywalker, and the fight for Western Civilization itself? As of this week — quite a lot.

On Friday, the White House posted an AI-generated photo of President Trump walking alongside a penguin holding an American flag, the pair marching toward mountains adorned with the Greenlandic flag. The caption read: “Embrace the penguin.”

Predictably, internet-illiterate leftists leapt to the conclusion that Trump thinks penguins live in Greenland (the only penguins native to the Northern Hemisphere live on the Galápagos Islands). But Trump’s penguin post wasn’t ignorant; it was a deliberate nod to a viral right-wing meme. And because the left can’t meme, they missed the reference entirely.

EVILS OF COLLECTIVISM ARE JUST WARMING UP. ‘RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM’ BETTER BE READY

For days, TikTok and Instagram have been flooded with a clip of a solitary penguin trudging toward distant mountains. The footage comes from Werner Herzog’s 2007 Antarctic documentary “Encounters at the End of the World.” In the film, Herzog shows a lone penguin peeling away from the safety of its colony and heading inland — toward certain death, according to Herzog.

But the online right saw something else. Users (mostly male) saw the penguin as a powerful rebuke of secular modernity. They interpreted the penguin not as lost, but as a free thinker. To them, he was rejecting the colony. In today’s terms, that means rejecting secular postmodern orthodoxy and marching toward a greater purpose.

It’s easy to think life is meaningless, civilization is collapsing and there’s nothing left to save. But that’s the lie of our age — the lie that nothing matters and the good cannot win.

TikTokers paired the penguin footage with an organ remix of the right-wing anthem “L’Amour Toujours (I’ll Fly With You)” and overlaid images of Western heroes: Joan of Arc, Alexander the Great, Aragorn, Jesus Christ, King Baldwin IV and Luke Skywalker. Countless similar penguin edits have garnered millions of views online.

WITHOUT GOD, NEW YORK’S DREAM TURNS HOLLOW. MY WALK ACROSS AMERICA PROVES IT

Although this is all long after his time, celebrated fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien understood the power behind the penguin. In Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” Frodo Baggins leaves the comforts of the Shire on a grueling, back-breaking quest. He faces hunger, fear, harsh weather, betrayal, and danger. Tolkien shows us, through storytelling, that all ordinary people are called to extraordinary courage by leaving comfort behind and facing suffering and sacrifice.

As Christians, we are beckoned to the hobbits’ adventure — to fight evil all our lives. The modern world suppresses that calling, teaching people that thinking with this type of purpose is somehow wrong. The modern world smears Christians, particularly White Christian men, as racist, misogynistic, oppressive and regressive. But the innate human desire to leave the Shire or the colony and seek a higher calling can never be killed.

WALKING ACROSS AMERICA SHOWED ME WHY FAITH AND FREE THOUGHT CAN STILL WIN

That’s why it’s no mystery that young men on social media are resonating with the penguin. As one user put it: “The penguin spoke to something in all of us men. A desire for more. To push our limits. To see what we’re truly made of.”

TIKTOK ISN’T ENOUGH TO STOP GEN Z FROM DRIFTING TO AOC. TRUMP MUST DO 3 THINGS NEXT

The penguin lore actually predates the memes that sprang up last week. The penguin first became an emblem of masculinity thanks to a previous viral video featuring a drag queen interrogating an elementary-school-age boy about men wearing makeup. The child asserted that boys cannot wear makeup. When the drag queen asked the boy, “Who said?” the boy pointed at a paper penguin on the wall and exclaimed, “The penguin over there!”

His answer was improvised, but the symbolism stuck. “The penguin over there” became a tongue-in-cheek internet defense of manhood and sex differences against the LGBT cult.

HOW FEMINISM HIJACKED THE CONVERSATION ON MASCULINITY

This brings us back to the administration. For Trump, the penguin is an apt symbol for the president’s decade-long fight against the radical left. His road to political power has been one marred by literal persecution — including an FBI raid on his home, impeachment witch hunts, and lawfare against him and all his supporters. It is therefore befitting that he would embrace the penguin on his journey against the regime, or “colony.”

Everything Trump does is opposed by the global power brokers. Even the president’s push to obtain Greenland has been fanatically opposed by hysterical European elites (who couldn’t care less about the invasion of the Third World into their own countries).

Other Trump administration leaders and their departments joined in on the penguin meme. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a “MAHA” video of himself walking with the penguin alongside the caption, “The mainstream made us sick. Choose the healthier path.”

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For RFK Jr., the penguin captures his rebellion against Big Pharma and Big Food — the revolt against the upside-down food pyramid and the corporate gospel of seed oils and processed sludge.

Then the Department of Homeland Security added its own compelling take. In response to the question of why the penguin is walking toward the mountains, DHS wrote, “Americans have always known why.”

STEEL, NOT SNOWFLAKES: REAL GRIT MEANS MASTERING YOUR EMOTIONS

DHS is right. America was built by penguins — and by that I mean rebels, pilgrims, frontier men and women, conquistadors, and cowboys. We are a nation founded by risk-takers who left the colony for the mountains. We are descended from men who suffered and died to carve civilization out of wilderness. It’s our inheritance.

But beneath the idea of rugged individualism lies a deeper religious current. Some users have interpreted the mountains to symbolize Jesus Christ Himself.

PRESIDENT TRUMP IS A GENERATIONAL TALENT JUST LIKE OUR MOST GIFTED ATHLETES

To be a Christian is to follow Jesus, “the way and the truth and the life,” which usually means taking a path opposite of the world. In other words, to be Christian is to leave the penguin colony. It means to walk into suffering. It means to climb Mount Doom. It means to reject modernity’s cheap dopamine for the deeper contentment of a redeemed soul.

One leftist on X sneered that Trump’s penguin post “has all the maturity of the brain rot Reels my kids watch.” Sure, there’s plenty of brain rot online, but the penguin is an exception.

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It’s easy to get “blackpilled” these days. It’s easy to spend our days doom-scrolling and believing the fight is pointless. It’s easy to think life is meaningless, civilization is collapsing and there’s nothing left to save. But that’s the lie of our age — the lie that nothing matters and the good cannot win.

This is why the penguin hits a nerve. He refuses to give up, stay in the colony, or let despair consume him.

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If you “get” the penguin, you’re already ahead. You know life isn’t supposed to be comfortable — but it’s also not supposed to be miserable.

Take comfort in that. 

If you understand the penguin, you understand the truth: We are meant to fight on this earth—with hope, not bitterness. You can even find hope just in knowing that Christ is always working in beautiful, mysterious ways — including through a penguin meme.

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DAN GAINOR: One child, one ICE photo — and a media meltdown built on distortion

A picture is worth a thousand words, as the old saying goes. There’s just no guarantee those words are truthful. In the case of a photo of a 5-year-old boy in Minnesota, the major media embraced shock and “awwww” instead of the truth.

The boy, named Liam Ramos, and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were approached by ICE agents. The father reportedly ran, leaving the boy alone with authorities. The father was quickly captured, but a photo of an officer with his hand resting lightly on the boy’s backpack sent the media into a predictable nationwide panic.

The press dug deep to find words of alarm — “upsetting,” “firestorm,” “controversy,” “outrage,” “haunting.” Each network tried to outdo the other with one goal in mind, and it wasn’t journalism. The goal was to help Democrats succeed in shaping the illegal immigration narrative, holding on to the millions of potential new voters they let into the country under Biden and keeping ICE from sending them back. No one is more on board with that agenda than so-called neutral journalists.

MEDIA RUNS WILD WITH ‘EGREGIOUS LIE’ ICE TARGETED 5-YEAR-OLD IN MINNESOTA, DHS SAYS CHILD WAS ABANDONED

Here’s what we really know. The father “is an Ecuadorian citizen who was in the United States illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration,” as reported by Fox News. DHS officials say they approached the father and he ran, leaving them with the boy. 

They quickly captured the father, who asked that they not be separated. Police reportedly even bought the boy a meal. Father and son are together in a facility in Dilley, Texas. Hardly the crisis of 2026. But there’s the photo of the boy standing there with a winter hat and wearing a Spider-Man backpack.

Major news outlets ran with the claim that the agents used the child as “bait” to capture his dad.

CBS — the network the left claims is pro-Trump — went with “bait.” So did AP, The Washington Post and PBS. (The Post later added a correction.) All of these are allegedly objective news outlets. They went with “bait,” citing a quote from a school official who clearly opposes ICE.

WHITE HOUSE, DHS PUSH BACK ON CLAIMS ICE TARGETED 5-YEAR-OLD IN MINNESOTA, SAY CHILD WAS ‘ABANDONED’

ABC anchor David Muir called the incident a “growing outrage.” Reporter Matt Rivers followed that up by referring to “the haunting images sparking a firestorm.” “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King focused her hyperbole on the child. “Now to the newest controversy over the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. It involves a 5-year-old boy. His name is Liam Ramos. Look at his face.” That’s not journalism. That’s activism.

She added while speaking on set, “Nicole, I was watching this story yesterday. It’s very upsetting. Both sides are very, very disturbing.” That could also be said about King, a Democrat donor and supporter who is rumored to be on her way out at CBS.

The other major media were almost as extreme. The New York Times claimed to speak for an entire city with this headline: “Detention of 5-Year-Old by Federal Agents Incenses Minneapolis.” The paper claimed, “The image prompted outrage in the Twin Cities area.” Leftists don’t want immigration enforcement. They are already at 10 billion on the outrage dial. This didn’t upset them — it was just an excuse.

DHS RELEASES IMAGE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF ABANDONING HIS 5-YEAR-OLD SON WHILE FLEEING ICE

The Post was just as bad, if not worse, running this piece: “The Abhorrent Power of the Photograph of a 5-Year-Old Held by ICE.” The paper grasped that this is what journalism does best now — find an iconic photo and use it to push an agenda. The link to the story on X repeats the “bait” claim.

The Post’s art and architecture critic, Philip Kennicott, understood the potential the photo has to aid the left’s agenda. “This is an image of universal moral urgency, akin to a small number of photographs that once upon a time had the power to change our behavior, away from cruelty or indifference and in the direction of basic decency.” He cited the 1972 “Napalm Girl” photo as a comparison — an absurd and offensive stretch.

PBS, which is still around (for now), quoted the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, being honest about the left’s motivation: “We’re looking at our legal options to see if we can free them either through some legal mechanisms or moral pressure.” The left doesn’t care about the law. They want to override it with manufactured moral outrage.

WASHINGTON POST CALLS MN CHURCH PROTEST AN ‘ASSAULT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY,’ DON LEMON AN ‘INTERNET PROVOCATEUR’

If you read the PBS article, it’s interrupted by a begging pop-up ad urging its mostly left-leaning readers to donate: “Your generous monthly contribution — or whatever you can give — will help secure our future.”

Then came the equally ridiculous left-wing outlets like MS Now (formerly MSNBC) and Mother Jones. MS Now went with: “The photo of 5-year-old Liam Ramos being detained by ICE is a shameful look for America.” You can picture the outlet’s fans shouting “Shame! Shame!” like a scene from

Mother Jones went fully off the deep end: “They Want to Tell You a Kid With a Spider-Man Backpack Is Evil.” Literally, no one said that — except Mother Jones.

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The whole controversy makes one wonder if journalists ever watch cop shows. If a parent gets arrested, officers can’t just abandon a child on the street. You think there’s outrage now? Imagine if they had. As Vice President JD Vance said, “Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death?”

Nearly every one of these immigration stories is one-sided, like nearly every major media controversy today. Nowhere do journalists interview former Biden administration officials about their open-border policies that brought these illegal immigrants into the U.S. and resulted in numerous American deaths. Every story is spun to depict Trump officials and ICE as evil for daring to enforce laws that Democrats and the press oppose — the same laws Democrats once enforced themselves.

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White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the press is working “hand in glove with Democrats to spread malicious lies about ICE operations.” You’ve got that right. But as the editor says in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That might as well be the motto of today’s news media.

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TEVI TROY: Shapiro’s revenge once again reveals Kamala Harris’ incompetence

When Kamala Harris wrote in her memoir “107 Days” that Pennsylvania governor – and fellow Democrat – Josh Shapiro insisted on being “in the room for every decision” if he were to become vice president, an angry Shapiro characterized her account as “bullsh–” and “blatant lies.” But Shapiro’s own forthcoming memoir demonstrates that he is not done getting back at Harris. His book includes the explosive and damaging tale that in the Harris team’s hostile vice-presidential vetting process, Shapiro was asked if he had ever been an Israeli agent, bringing to mind the ugly association of Jews and dual loyalty.

The story is harmful to Harris in a number of ways. It reinforces the existing impression that she and her team were clumsy, but also adds the dimension that they may have been antisemitic. Indeed, even Joe Biden’s former envoys on antisemitism have denounced the Harris team’s questioning as “horrifying.” Shapiro’s devastating tale is a reminder of Harris’ failure to understand a basic rule of life in the political big leagues: Don’t dish it out in your memoirs and get caught unawares when your targets respond.

In the modern, staff memoir-writing era, there have been numerous instances of aggrieved officials hitting back hard against memoirs that attacked people ostensibly on the same political team. A great example of this kind of revenge happened in the wake of Arthur Schlesinger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his time in the Kennedy administration, “A Thousand Days.” Some in the Kennedy camp were annoyed with Schlesinger’s account, including former first lady Jackie Kennedy, who told Schlesinger that he had gotten “too personal” with some of his revelations. Even more irked was Kennedy’s secretary of state, Dean Rusk. Schlesinger wrote that Kennedy had been thinking of firing Rusk and that the “Buddha-like” Rusk would say little in White House meetings. Rusk, who was still the secretary of state for Lyndon Johnson when the book came out, let it be known that he was only silent around Schlesinger because Schlesinger was a notorious gossip on the Georgetown cocktail party circuit. 

Sometimes, responses to a book can be less ad hoc and more systematic. Charlie Kolb, a domestic policy aide to President George H.W. Bush, wrote a critical memoir called “White House Daze,” which came out in 1993, after Bush had lost to Bill Clinton. The memoir was particularly harsh on Kolb’s boss, Roger Porter, as well as Bush’s Office of Management and Budget Director Dick Darman, with whom Kolb had clashed in the White House. Bush staffer Tom Scully, who had been an aide to Darman, dismissed the very idea of Kolb having had the access for writing a revealing book, saying, “Charlie was so cut out of everything that for him to be in a position to write a book was a joke.” Scully was not alone in being unhappy with Kolb, as the Bush alumni collectively froze Kolb out. In 1999, years after the administration ended, Scully – who had endorsed Kolb’s hiring to begin with – recounted that “Nobody’s talked to Charlie in seven years that I know of. He’s the most unpopular guy as a result of that book.”

Unlike the Kolb book, George Stephanopoulos’ “All Too Human” came out while President Clinton was still in office. Stephanopoulos’ revealing memoir called out the sitting president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky affair as “stupid, selfish, and self-destructive.” Clinton staffers responded to Stephanopoulos’ best-selling book both on and off the record. Anonymous aides called Stephanopoulos a “backstabber” and an “ingrate.” Clinton ally Mandy Grunwald also sniped that if Clinton hadn’t given him the “opportunity of a lifetime,” he wouldn’t have become a “multimillion-dollar book writer and commentator.”

KAMALA HARRIS DISPARAGES WASHINGTON POST, LA TIMES OVER NON-ENDORSEMENTS IN 2024

Another damaging memoir that came out during an administration was Scott McLellan’s “What Happened.” McLellan made a number of criticisms of President George W. Bush, writing that Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and that he engaged in “self-deception.” McLellan also called the invasion of Iraq a “serious strategic blunder,” and claimed that the Bush White House made “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”

The Bush White House responded with a seemingly organized effort to dismiss McLellan’s book.

After the memoir came out, multiple Bush allies criticized McLellan with similarly crafted talking points. Senior Adviser Karl Rove said, “This doesn’t sound like Scott. It really doesn’t. Not the Scott McClellan I’ve known for a long time.”

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These types of pushback are, of course, fair game from those targeted in a negative memoir. John Bolton probably expected President Trump to criticize him and even call him a “liar” following Bolton’s critical memoir of his time in the first Trump administration, “The Room Where It Happened.” He probably did not expect Trump’s second term, in which Bolton is being investigated for misuse of classified information, an investigation that probably would not have happened but for the book.

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Memoir writers do not have to take people on by name, as Harris did to Shapiro. Sometimes memoirists call out anonymous antagonists. Examples of this include John Podhoretz, who created composite characters in his George H.W. Bush book “Hell of a Ride,” and Condoleezza Rice, whose memoir of the George W. Bush years, “No Higher Honor,” is replete with over 20 uses of anonymous characters. This could be a way to spare someone’s feelings, but it could also minimize the odds of someone taking revenge. When someone is criticized by name, as Shapiro was, the odds of blowback are much higher, as Harris has now learned.

Memoirs are part of the game, but Harris should have known that taking on a savvy player like Shapiro was not without cost. If she had paid more attention to history, she might have been aware of the risks she was taking in calling out Shapiro. Her lack of awareness of what other politicos have done in response to poor memoir depictions is just one more sign of her lack of aptitude for politics – and left her vulnerable to Shapiro’s revenge.

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Young men aren’t failing America — America is failing to give them purpose

What could two men from entirely different generations, politics, and backgrounds possibly share in common? A mutual concern for America’s future and the young men growing up in it.

Our shared lived experience — an experience that we’re seeing become less frequent — is driving our concern as we see it move from the norm to the exception. As young men, both of us volunteered. It instilled in us a sense of pride, duty, identity and connection. For Neil, it was a summer with a nonprofit to engage with kids in a small low-income fishing village in Labrador, Canada. For Alex, it was time spent as a Boy Scout learning the power of collective action and shared responsibility to community. 

These service experiences were formative in shaping who we are. However, as volunteering declines and isolation increases, opportunities for connection through service are not top of mind for most young American men. 

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY MAY IMPACT YOUNG ADULTS TWICE AS MUCH AS TEENS, HARVARD SURVEY FINDS

Across classrooms, workplaces and online, we’re seeing what happens when young men become untethered from their communities. The data alone tells a powerful story. Among 18- to 35-year-olds, men are significantly more likely to feel lonely, compared to their female counterparts. Fifteen percent of young men today report having no close friends, compared to 3% in the 1990s. Perhaps most alarmingly, suicide rates among men in 2021 were four times higher than those of women. And the most common last words men use to describe themselves before they take their own lives are “worthless” and “useless.” 

People are taking note, but we need to take action. This year, California launched a statewide initiative to shine a spotlight on this growing emergency and, more importantly, an unexpected solution: .

Volunteering gives men a structured way to build relationships and feel part of something larger than themselves. Research shows that young people who volunteer show significantly better well-being. Youth who volunteer have 25% lower anxiety, are 35% less likely to have behavioral problems, and are 66% more likely to be “flourishing” compared to non-volunteers.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP AMERICA, START SERVING

Yet in 2023, only 34.1%  of young people ages 16 to 17 volunteered in the past year. Consider a recent NBC poll in which Gen Z men ranked making their family or community proud and using their talents to help others among the top five markers of success. Volunteering is one of the few cost-free ways to live out these values and create purpose and connection as a result.

So, what must we do to reconnect young men to community through service? We need to rebuild the civic infrastructure around volunteering so that people understand  and  to get involved. We also need to show young people that volunteering isn’t just good for their communities – it’s profoundly good for them too.

Points of Light found that 44% of people who want to volunteer are unsure how to get involved and where to find opportunities, or say they cannot find opportunities near where they live or work. 

Every young man should have access to opportunities that foster purpose, pride and belonging.

That’s why Points of Light is calling for a collective national response — to elevate the value of volunteering, reduce these barriers by meeting young people where they are, and ultimately double the number of volunteers by 2035.

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Already, the organization — whose mission is to increase volunteerism around the world — engages 4 million volunteers annually. But expanding our volunteer infrastructure through public and private investment is critical to achieving this goal.

Every young man should have access to opportunities that foster purpose, pride and belonging. That could mean corporations putting real dollars and time where it matters, offering paid volunteer hours for workers to mentor and serve alongside young men. It could mean schools–from primary to post-secondary–community centers and youth organizations strengthening the programs that make volunteering accessible: from service-learning in classrooms to after-school and weekend opportunities.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, it raises the question: what kind of nation do we want the next generation to inherit? How can we ensure it’s one that doesn’t leave  behind? 

Governments, institutions and leaders must come together to make service central to American life. In turn, this will build a culture where a generation of young men feels connected to one another, proud of their roles and rooted in the communities they serve.

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No crisis can be solved overnight, but the choices we make right now will determine the future we hand off to young people. We can either continue to watch our young men drift further into isolation, or we can offer them a life raft — an opportunity that we know will work.

Together, we can help the next generation of young men find purpose and belonging — one act of service at a time.

JOSH HAMMER: Case against Israel cheapens the word ‘genocide’

The horrific regime slaughter in Iran and President Trump’s aggressive campaign to acquire Greenland have resulted in the neglect of a major case now underway at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The ICJ last week began hearings brought by Gambia against Myanmar alleging genocide against the Rohingya people — about 1.4 million of whom live in Myanmar. Several other states have intervened in support of Gambia, which has presented the court with evidence it contends proves that Myanmar’s military forces committed a genocide against the Rohingya population. Myanmar vehemently denies the allegation.

While this case does not concern Israel directly, the ICJ’s determinations may have major ramifications for the case Israel is now defending at the tribunal against South Africa.

This is especially true since one of the judges hand-picked by Gambia to sit on its ICJ panel is South African national Navi Pillay. That would be the same Navi Pillay who recently rushed to publish a report accusing Israel of genocide before retiring as head of the UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry — a panel widely criticized for its flagrant institutional bias against Israel and the anti-Semitic remarks of its members.

‘UNPRECEDENTED’ ANTISEMITISM PANEL TACKLES SURGING NATIONAL ISSUE

In reality, South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel is riddled with flaws. It is also pushing to redefine a term that been held sacrosanct since the end of World War II.

The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor who in 1944 strived for its incorporation into modern international law. That occurred in 1948 via the UN Genocide Convention.

The prohibition on genocide is considered a norm — that is, a non-derogable rule accepted by all of the first-world community with no exceptions. The definition of “genocide” requires no law degree to understand, and it should never, ever be politicized.

WESTERN LEADERS MUST CONFRONT ISLAMIST-INSPIRED ANTISEMITIC VIOLENCE BEFORE IT TARGETS EVERYONE

For a genocide to take place under Geneva, there must be acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” The phrase “intent” here is of paramount importance.

South Africa’s pending case before the ICJ alleges Israeli intent to destroy the Palestinian-Arab population of Gaza. Israel, by contrast, (correctly) maintains that its recent actions in Gaza have been a just and proper military response to the war of annihilationist jihad and unspeakable atrocities launched against it by the Hamas terrorist organization on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel’s “intent” is to free Gaza from Hamas, to return hostages abducted and held by Hamas, and to ensure Hamas has no future role in Gaza and cannot undertake another October 7-style massacre. It repeatedly offered to end the war if Hamas laid down its arms and released all hostages.

ANTISEMITIC THREATS ESCALATE NATIONWIDE AS PROTESTERS CALL FOR REPEAT OF OCT 7 MASSACRE

Hamas, on the other hand, has shown a complete disregard for human life and has openly stated that its sacrifice of Gazan civilians is a cynical strategic necessity to turn public opinion against Israel. It has for years embedded military infrastructure within Gazan civilian infrastructure — schools, hospitals, UN facilities, mosques, and children’s bedrooms. Israel has waged a defensive campaign in one of the most complex operational environments of any modern war.

At the same time, it has worked with states and NGOs to allow and facilitate extensive amounts of humanitarian aid, rebuilt water supplies, coordinated the vaccination of young Gazans against polio, and helped coordinate and approve the evacuation of those in need of urgent medical care.

Israel repeatedly provides advanced warnings of impending military strikes and has held off strikes where intelligence of nearby civilians has come to light. For a fighting party to so often relinquish the element of surprise to reduce harm to the local civilian population of its enemy is extraordinary.

MORNING GLORY: 2026 SHOULD BE YEAR ANTISEMITISM BECOMES UNACCEPTABLE IN AMERICA AGAIN

None of this constitutes a “genocide” — and clearly shows the lack of any by Israel to destroy the local Palestinian-Arab population in Gaza.

Nonetheless, since South Africa brought its case before the ICJ, numerous groups and states have leapt at the opportunity to join in on the anti-Israel campaign. This has ranged from tendentious so-called online genocide scholars to anti-Semitic mobs to deeply politicized NGOs. Amnesty International, for instance, shamelessly waited more than two years before publishing a report focusing on Hamas’ crimes on Oct. 7, while straining to remind readers of its slanderous accusation of genocide made against Israel a year prior.

Together, they have all been involved in a campaign to redefine the term “genocide” to suit their narrative — all while ignoring the reality of Hamas’ own Nazi-esque barbarism.

The politically motivated efforts to undermine the concept should be of grave concern to us all. If successful, it will result in the ICJ’s further self-discrediting as an institution of political point scoring, rather than meaningful justice.

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Israel has legitimately responded to genocidal attacks by a terrorist organization that has repeatedly called for its entire annihilation and the murder of all global Jewry — something it broadcast live to the world on Oct. 7, 2023.

The term “genocide” is one too important to be cheapened. Those pushing for its redefinition must be stopped in their tracks.

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America doesn’t need to own Greenland — there’s a better, more peaceful way

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Trump backed off his threat to use the military to gain control of Greenland. He said that he doesn’t need to use military force and later announced that the U.S. had reached agreement on the “framework of a future deal” with NATO. Denmark, Greenland and our European allies have rejected any attempt by the U.S. to acquire the island.

Contrary to President Donald Trump’s views, the U.S. does not need to own Greenland to defend it. For decades, our national security has been strengthened by cooperative agreements with Greenland, Denmark and other NATO nations extending back to the Second World War.

During World War II, the Nazis occupied Denmark and had a military outpost in Greenland. The U.S. ousted the Nazis from Greenland and established military bases on the island. In 1951, the U.S. entered into an agreement with the Danish government providing for joint defense, and throughout the Cold War the U.S. maintained military facilities on the island. In 2004, the agreement was updated to give Greenland’s government a greater say in how U.S. military operations impacted its citizens.

TOP NATO OFFICIAL REVEALS DETAILS OF STUNNING MEETING WITH TRUMP THAT PRODUCED GREENLAND DEAL ‘FRAMEWORK’

In recent decades, the U.S., in cooperation with the Danish and Greenland governments, has maintained a limited military presence on the island. Under these agreements, the U.S. has had wide discretion in running military operations in Greenland for national defense. Danish and Greenland citizens now ask the obvious question: If President Trump wants to beef up the U.S. military presence in Greenland, why doesn’t he do it within the framework of existing agreements?

One argument used by President Trump is that the U.S. needs to own Greenland to secure rare earth mineral deposits on the island. The pretext for this claim is the decision by China to impose export controls on their rare earth mineral producers. The fact is that in recent years the U.S. has significantly reduced its dependence on Chinese rare earth minerals. Greenland has substantial reserves of rare earth minerals. However, access to these rare earth minerals is constrained by both technology and limited downstream facilities required to bring rare earth minerals to market. It will take many years to explore and develop Greenland’s rare earth minerals and bring them to market.

Greenland should retain control over its rare earth minerals and develop these resources to benefit its people. The proven way to do this is to rely on markets, not politics. Greenland should grant leases to multinational corporations in a competitive market. These lease agreements could generate royalties and revenue for Greenland based on market conditions. Greenland should place this royalty revenue in a sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of its citizens. The precedent for such a sovereign wealth fund is that created in Norway, the Government Pension Fund of Norway. The creation of a sovereign wealth fund could guarantee that these revenues are used to benefit Greenland’s people rather than elites, special interests, or foreign interests.

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The U.S. should support this approach to the exploration and development of rare earth resources in Greenland because it is in our national interests. In the long run, Greenland could emerge as a major partner in NATO, much like Norway. President Trump should pursue policies to strengthen NATO, not undermine it. Greenland and Denmark remain committed to this cooperative approach.

No marriage. No babies. No future. America’s going from birth to death

A new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows that, absent immigration, America’s population will begin to shrink by 2030. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, this projection underscores a hard truth: the collapse of marriage and family life represents the gravest threat to our great nation’s future.

That is why The Heritage Foundation has released the first in a series of special reports on Saving America by Saving the Family. The central argument is straightforward. Our country cannot afford to continue ignoring our declining marriage and birthrates, as lawmakers on both the Left and Right have done for decades. The discussion ranges from eliminating all marriage penalties embedded in welfare programs, to new tax credits for married families, to offering public honors to couples for every decade they remain married.

These proposals reflect a blend of longstanding conservative priorities and new ideas, all animated by a shared belief: that strong American families were at the heart of the nation in 1776 and remain essential to its future. They are not offered as a final word, but as the beginning of a long-overdue national conversation about how to halt America’s demographic and social collapse.

HERITAGE FOUNDATION WARNS AMERICA ‘DANGEROUSLY CLOSE’ TO FAMILY BREAKDOWN POINT OF NO RETURN

Unfortunately, there are those—on both the radical Left and the libertarian Right—who are rigidly and ideologically opposed to our key ideas for supporting married families.

Critics on the Left argue that opposition to abortion and support for married parents who prefer to provide home child care (usually through the mother) amount to a patriarchal assault on women’s “autonomy” and “reproductive freedom.” Meanwhile, critics on the libertarian Right contend that government has no business trying to incentivize decisions related to family structure.

America is a nation rooted in its people, culture, laws and customs, as well as its ideals—and it cannot be sustained if Americans themselves do not marry, form families, and raise children

Few dispute that marriage rates are falling, that traditional families are weakening, or that the nation stands on a demographic precipice. What is striking is how our critics echo each other in saying the government should not be doing anything proactively about it.

The problem is that if traditional families continue to disappear, we will eventually lose America itself.

AMERICA’S NEXT HEALTH REVOLUTION STARTS IN THE KITCHEN — AND AROUND THE DINNER TABLE

America is a nation rooted in its people, culture, laws and customs, as well as its ideals—and it cannot be sustained if Americans themselves do not marry, form families, and raise children. And yes, we do believe it is legitimate for government to encourage ways of life that allow its people to endure and flourish, and the social science is crystal clear—traditional married families outpace the alternatives in a host of wealth, education, health, and happiness measures.

We make no apology for wanting to persuade more young Americans to marry, own homes, raise the next generation, and find deep fulfillment in family life.

We also do not believe the solution lies in mass immigration when we can’t even assimilate the immigrants that are already here. Nor do we believe that modern technology can substitute for the home, the neighborhood, and the family.

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The quintessential American Dream of a family with a house and a white-picket fence remains as important as ever to the American imagination, and our task is to convert that dream into a reality. We want to make sure young Americans can realistically achieve these goals by, at a minimum, removing obstacles that stand in the way, and by assuring our policies actually privilege, prefer and support married family formation.

That is a winning message conservatives would do well to embrace in 2026. And the good news is that President Trump is already leading the way. He recently announced his intention to tackle the unaffordability of single-family homes and abuses in the credit-card industry, and Heritage looks forward to contributing our thoughts and recommendations into that discussion and those to come.

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More broadly, we will continue to answer those—on the Left and on the libertarian Right—who either see no problem or see no solution. They are wrong on both counts. A society that refuses to defend marriage and child-rearing is not neutral; it is choosing between accelerated or managed decline. And a movement that shrugs its shoulders in the face of that decline offers nothing but surrender.

If our critics have new ideas, they should by all means present them. But we are done watching our kids fall further behind, our families struggle and our societal pillars crumble, and we are calling for action that meets the moment. Heritage will be proud to work on ushering in a new American Golden Age, centered on the family, and the next phase in reaching that goal begins now.

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SEN DEB FISCHER: The EV scam that stuck taxpayers with the bill for elite perks

In 2022, Democrats rammed through what they misleadingly called the Inflation Reduction Act. The name was deceptive then, and the results are undeniable now: it didn’t reduce inflation. What it did accomplish was shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into “Green New Deal” subsidies — chief among them, electric vehicle (EV) tax credits that disproportionately benefited the wealthy.

At the time, I stood on the Senate floor and asked: Why should working Americans struggling with high prices be forced to subsidize luxury car purchases for the rich? Nearly every Senate Democrat voted to keep these handouts alive. Now, more than four years later, the data proves I was right.

The National Bureau of Economic Research found that seven out of 10 EV tax credit recipients would have bought an electric car anyway. In other words, taxpayers were footing the bill for decisions affluent households were already going to make. That’s not an incentive — that’s a windfall.

AMERICANS ARE PUMPING THE BRAKES ON ELECTRIC VEHICLE ADOPTION: ‘AFFORDABILITY IS A BIG ISSUE’

And who reaped that windfall? The wealthiest Americans. A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that before the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the top 5% of earners claimed half of all EV tax credit benefits, while the bottom 60% of earners received less than 3%. Democrats claim they fixed this by adding income caps, but they set the ceiling at $300,000 for joint filers. 

Since when is $300,000 considered middle class? In what world should taxpayers be buying $80,000 SUVs for families earning three times the median household income?

The environmental case isn’t much stronger. Yes, EVs produce fewer emissions than gas-powered cars. But the Congressional Research Service highlights research showing that the credits mostly displaced sales of other efficient vehicles like hybrids. When you account for that substitution, the supposed climate benefits are overstated by nearly 40%. Simply put, these credits aren’t nearly as “green” as Democrats claim.

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Meanwhile, the price tag was massive. That’s why I’m pleased we repealed these wasteful tax credits in July’s reconciliation law. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this will save taxpayers $190 billion over the next decade. Republicans are saving taxpayers from this costly policy that was never going to deliver on Democrats’ own goal of 50% EV sales by 2030.

“In what world should taxpayers be buying $80,000 SUVs for families earning three times the median household income?”

The verdict is clear: EV tax credits are inefficient, inequitable and irresponsible. They don’t meaningfully change consumer behavior, they don’t deliver the promised environmental gains and they drain taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the rich. 

If Democrats were serious about helping working families — instead of virtue-signaling about climate change — they would back policies that deliver a real return on investment.

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A good place to start would be addressing the dwindling Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which is projected to run insolvent by 2028. While drivers of gasoline-powered cars pay into the HTF through the federal gas tax, EVs do not contribute at all despite their heavier batteries putting greater wear and tear on our roads and bridges. That means higher maintenance costs, and, once again, working Americans footing the bill.

That’s why I introduced the Fair SHARE Act, which would require EVs to contribute to this fund. I encourage my Democratic colleagues to cosponsor it and to work with me on including an EV fee in the upcoming Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act. That would be a fairer, smarter policy – one that actually serves working families instead of subsidizing the wealthy.

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DAVID MARCUS: From borders to bombs, 5 times Trump defied experts in Year 1

Donald Trump’s second first year in the presidency will go down in history as one of the most eventful in our nation’s first 250 years, largely because time and again he made experts who doubted his methods look like fools.

For decades, at least since the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have seen presidents as caretakers of our democracy, not as drivers of it, but Trump, seeing the caustic caution of a Congress which couldn’t pass a bill to decide where to have lunch, has acted.

These actions have paid dividends, loath though the legacy media is to admit it, and they are reasons to be excited about what his next three years may hold.

ONE YEAR BACK IN THE OVAL OFFICE, TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SAYS EVERY MAJOR CAMPAIGN PROMISE DELIVERED

I’ll give you five examples where the experts said Trump was out of his mind, but, in reality, it all worked out fine.

1. Closing the Border

Prior to Trump taking office, Democrats had assured the American people that the border could not be closed without congressional action, and the experts gravely agreed.

DAVID MARCUS: TRUMP UNDERSTANDS THAT SAFETY IS FOR EVERY CITIZEN, NOT JUST THE LUCKY FEW

“A president doesn’t have the unilateral authority to shut down the border,” insisted Alberto Benitez, director of the Immigration Clinic at George Washington University Law School, in 2024, for example.

That has simply, and objectively, turned out to be false. According to Customs and Border Protection, there have been seven straight months of zero illegal immigrants being released into the country, not 1,000, not 100, but zero.

The border is shut. It’s actually incredible, but too often when an incredible thing happens we just accept it as the norm, as if it’s always been. No. Trump made that happen.

MORNING GLORY: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAS BECOME THE ‘PUNISHER-IN-CHIEF’

2. Tariffs

On “Liberation Day,” as Trump dubbed it, in the spring of last year, tariffs went through the roof on almost every nation, and the stock market tanked immediately, with pundits predicting the president’s approval ratings would tank just as quickly.

On every TV network and in every serious financial journal we were told that soon stock brokers would be selling apples on the street corner from carts in black-and-white photographs.

DAVID MARCUS: WHY TRUMP’S MAJOR TRIUMPHS WILL OUTLAST HIS POLLING DIP

“This is a disaster, and anyone who says otherwise is lying,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted on X, back then.

In fact, Trump’s “yuge” tariffs were an opening position, and about four gazillion trade deals have been accomplished as a result. Like those deals or not, the stock market today is at record highs, and everyone on Wall Street is still in color.

3. Bombing Iran

Critics of Trump, from both the left and the right, warned that if he were to attack Iran, it could unleash unrest in the Middle East and perhaps even World War III!

LIZ PEEK: TRUMP IS PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BY BACKING IRAN INTO A CORNER

Ryan Crocker, a distinguished chair in diplomacy and security at RAND, said prior to the strike, “… it is unlikely that air power alone will eliminate Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons,” adding, “Perhaps the U.S. force would persuade Iran to agree to such restrictions. If not, it will broaden the conflict and deepen Iranian determination to acquire nuclear weapons, whatever the cost.”

Once again, Trump was right, and the experts were wrong.

What actually happened was that the U.S. military, under the direction of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, neutralized that very nuclear program that Barack Obama and his buddies wanted to contain through appeasement.

Now, Iran’s murderous regime is on the brink of destruction because Trump refused to listen to the experts.

4. Crime in Washington, D.C.

The murder rate in Washington, D.C., dropped 40% last year, second only to Denver at 41%. For almost half of that year, President Trump had the National Guard deployed to protect the city and its citizens.

But what did the experts say at the time about the use of the National Guard?

DAVID MARCUS: SECURE BORDER BRINGS PLUMMETING OVERDOSE DEATHS, BUT DON’T EXPECT TRUMP TO GET CREDIT

David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, had this to say: “When communities don’t feel they’re being policed properly, they stop helping. It’s very common for what’s seen as illegitimate policing to result in spikes of violence. And I’m very concerned about that in this instance.”

The experts insisted that the Guard wasn’t even in the areas where most crime occurred, but Trump, who witnessed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s miraculous anti-crime transformation of Gotham in the 1990s, knew better.

According to The Trace, improvement was immediate, “From August 11 to October 11 — the first two months of Trump’s takeover — 41 people were shot in Washington, 10 of them fatally. That’s a 62 percent drop in the number of shootings over the same period last year.”

The Trump administration’s broken-windows policing is working. And everybody knows it.

DAVID MARCUS: HOW MANY AMERICAN LIVES HAS TRUMP’S BORDER MIRACLE ALREADY SAVED?

5. The Cabinet

Whether it was Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sean Duffy or Pam Bondi, almost all of Trump’s cabinet picks, save maybe Marco Rubio, because everyone likes Rubio, were viewed by critics on the left as sycophantic wannabes who had no business in their roles.

Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, said a year ago, “We’re in untested waters,” going on to say, “It’s true that people’s standards have shifted, but the question is, when does it really cross a line?”

REBECCA GRANT: TRUMP’S 8 BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY WINS OF 2025

In practice, Trump’s Cabinet has been one of the most effective and cohesive cabinets in modern history and has delivered on several successes for the president, as listed above. Not only that, but televised, hours-long, cabinet meetings have kept Americans quite informed about what they are actually doing.

The expert class demanded that their own apparatchiks fill these coveted slots and basically make sure that nothing changes very much, even if they use big words to pretend it will.

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That’s not how Trump rolls, at least not in his second term.

The American people must hope that the Trump administration continues to confound the expert class, and the Davos conglomerates of too-skinny billionaires.

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The experts are on tap for Trump, as they should be, but they are not on top. Instead, on top are the interests of America, and time and again, on that score, he always seems to prove the experts wrong.

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Jeremy Piven hopes ‘Rush Hour 4’ won’t ‘operate out of fear’ and stays true to franchise

EXCLUSIVE – Fans of the movie franchise are likely to always remember actor Jeremy Piven’s wild cameo in “Rush Hour 2.” And it turns out he had just as much fun acting it as audiences did watching.

In the sequel, Piven plays a flamboyant Versace store clerk in Las Vegas who helps Carter and Lee, played by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, with their suit shopping. In the Brett Ratner-directed films, Chan stars as a top Hong Kong inspector and Tucker as a Los Angeles police officer who team up to solve international crimes. Piven’s brief scene had audiences praising him for pulling off “one of the greatest cameos of all time” with his flashy, comedic timing as he confuses Carter and Lee as a gay couple and promises to turn them into “the belle of the ball.”

“You know, when I played that scene, it was just before I had done ‘Entourage,'” Piven told Fox News Digital. “I was still in my kind of journeyman actor phase. I think I still am in that phase, fortunately or unfortunately. You know, about 40 movies before ‘Entourage’ and that was one of them. And I had one line, you know, ‘May I help you?’ And I improvised and had fun with it and, yeah, it would be great to explore that character again.” 

‘ENTOURAGE’ STAR JEREMY PIVEN SAYS PEOPLE ARE TOO EASILY TRIGGERED AND NEED TO HEAR EACH OTHER OUT

Fans were thrilled by the news that nearly two decades since the last movie, “Rush Hour 4” was in the works, yet some may be concerned about whether the latest film in the franchise would suffer in today’s more sensitized environment. The first three films are known for their politically incorrect humor as much as for their action sequences.

“I would like whatever sequel comes out, for it to be true to its nature with ‘Rush Hour,'” Piven said. “And yeah, it’d be fun to see where my character is now.”

Piven also addressed his famous scene in a recent interview with New Yorkers Live, saying he was glad viewers didn’t think he was “demeaning the gay community” with his portrayal. In the same interview, Piven said that once people stop being so “easily triggered” by comedy in general, they’re “going to have a better life.” 

PARAMOUNT REVIVES ‘RUSH HOUR’ FRANCHISE REPORTEDLY AFTER TRUMP’S REQUEST

Piven suggested that as long as the movie stays true to what made the franchise funny in the first place, fans will show up. The “Rush Hour” movies earned big laughs out of the culture clash of Lee and Carter when out of their element — one particularly memorable scene in the first movie shows Chan’s character accidentally using a racial slur that he thinks is endearing him to a bartender; in the second movie, Carter nearly gets himself killed by gangsters at a Hong Kong club when he starts talking too much.

“I think if they try to second-guess the humor and play it safe or operate out of fear, no good can come creatively when you operate out of fear,” Piven told Fox News Digital. “So, I think if they’re true to the spirit of the rest of those movies. . . . You know, Chris has evolved since then as a person and as a performer. And so has Jackie. Jackie is an absolute legend. And so it’d be really fun to see where they are now. And it would be fun to be a part of that again. I love those guys.” 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Paramount for comment.

JACKIE CHAN REVEALS HE IS IN TALKS FOR ‘RUSH HOUR 4’ DURING FILM FESTIVAL APPEARANCE: REPORT

Piven, best-known for his Emmy-winning turn as Hollywood agent Ari Gold in HBO’s “Entourage,” is currently on a comedy tour throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia. The show, according to the official website, “highlights Piven’s successful transition into stand-up comedy, a comedic muscle he’s been flexing to showcase his dynamic personality.”

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“What’s so fun about doing stand-up is, no matter what the room is, no matter the temperature is, it’s our job to navigate it and to kind of be the best version of ourselves in that moment,” Piven told Fox News Digital. “Whether, no matter what you’re facing. So, I mean, that’s one of the great challenges, I believe.”

THE PROSECUTORS: Arkansas father caught in legal nightmare for saving daughter from monster

A travesty of justice is unfolding in Arkansas, but it isn’t too late to stop it.

At 1:12 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 8, 2024, Aaron Spencer and his wife awoke to find their 13-year-old daughter missing from her bed. Spencer’s wife called 911, while Spencer jumped into his vehicle and sped off into the night, desperate to find any trace of his missing child. He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the truck of Michael Fosler, with his daughter inside.

Fosler was no stranger to the Spencers. In July of that year, Fosler allegedly raped Spencer’s daughter, resulting in his indictment for 43 separate counts including sexual assault of a minor, internet stalking of a child and possession of child pornography. The Lonoke County prosecutors handled the case, with it landing on the desk of Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore. It’s a little unclear who dropped the ball — Lonoke County, Judge Elmore, or some combination of both — but what we know for sure is that this dangerous abuser of children was released from custody on a $5,000 bond, with a no contact order in place to prevent further abuse of Spencer’s daughter. Then Oct. 8 came, and neither the bond nor the no contact order was worth the paper it was printed on.

Spencer’s actions in that moment were nothing short of heroic. He ran Fosler’s truck off the road, and firearm in hand, ordered him to release his daughter. Instead, Fosler fought back, and the struggle ended with Spencer emptying his firearm into Fosler. Spencer then rescued his daughter from the truck and called 911.

ARMY VET DAD RUNS FOR SHERIFF WHILE CHARGED WITH GUNNING DOWN DAUGHTER’S ALLEGED SEXUAL PREDATOR

Spencer never should have been in this situation. He shouldn’t have had to save his daughter from a monster. But because local elected prosecutors and judges failed him, that was the position he was put in. Astonishingly, the prosecuting attorney not only failed to take any responsibility for what had transpired; he charged Aaron Spencer with second-degree murder. And wouldn’t you know it, the judge on the case was none other than Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore.

Judge Elmore immediately took action to hide this affair from the public eye, dropping a gag order on everyone in any way connected with the case, preventing them, on penalty of contempt of court, from speaking with the press or the public about the case. Gag orders are not that unusual, but this one was so expansive and so obtrusive that the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in and declared it unconstitutional, finding that it “was on its face a plain, manifest, clear, and gross abuse of discretion and in excess of its authority.”

Judge Elmore was undeterred. Despite the constitutional right every defendant has to a public trial, she essentially closed the trial to the public, greatly limiting the seats available to the public, media, and even Spencer’s own defense team. Elmore did this without providing any alternative means of viewing the trial, and without any evidentiary hearing or judicial findings justifying it. For the people of Arkansas, it seemed like the fix was in. The judge who had once failed Aaron Spencer’s daughter was now committed to ensuring that his trial would happen in as close to secrecy as she could muster.

Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in, again, vacating the judge’s order. But they didn’t stop there. The high court took the extraordinary step of removing Judge Elmore from the case. The unusual remedy showed just how egregious her behavior had become.

This is the first step toward justice, but it shouldn’t be the last. The prosecuting attorney should drop this case altogether.

Not that the prosecution’s behavior up to this point has been indicative of good judgment. Statements from the prosecutors in this case are not only embarrassing; they should trouble the people of Arkansas. Prosecutors suggested that Spencer’s angry comments from July—when he discovered that his daughter had been raped by Fosler—were somehow evidence of his intent in October. Never mind that such anger would be the natural reaction of any father. And never mind that Spencer didn’t hunt down Fosler and murder him in the weeks or even months that followed; he shot him while rescuing his daughter from another kidnapping by Fosler.

Prosecutors also suggested that Spencer should have just called 911 when he saw his daughter in the truck with Fosler. That a father should give up the pursuit of his daughter’s kidnapper and rapist in the hopes that the police could arrive in time to save her is so astonishingly absurd it boggles the mind that any prosecutor charged with protecting and defending citizens and victims of crimes would countenance it.

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But the removal of Judge Elmore and the attendant delay in Spencer’s trial provide an opportunity to end this farce. The local prosecutors should drop this case. The state attorney general should refuse to defend any conviction, in the unlikely event a jury returns one. And the governor should promise to do everything in her power to pardon Spencer, if she must. To do otherwise is to turn justice on its head and to leave every person in Arkansas at the mercy of the predators who would victimize them and their children.

BROADCAST BIAS: Networks side with church invaders, call attack mostly ‘peaceful’

When the radical left feels the urgent need to protest, and to make it saucy enough to go viral, it doesn’t want to observe any rules, or even laws. On Sunday, Jan. 18, a “racial justice” contingent invaded the evangelical Cities Church in Minnesota. Organizer Nekima Levy Armstrong brought at least 20 other people who interrupted the sermon, yelling things like “Justice for Renee Good” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.” The church emptied, and the activists closed down their operation about 45 minutes later, once police arrived.

The broadcast networks didn’t want to acknowledge this story, perceiving that it might be a little too extreme for the average American. This was a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act — and everyone can guess how energetically ABC, CBS and NBC would respond with outrage to protesters marching into an abortion clinic and interrupting anyone’s “right to choose.” We could guess the same for Trump supporters walking into a mosque during their weekly worship. 

But through mid-week, through early Wednesday morning, these networks could only muster two minutes and 43 seconds among them on their morning and evening newscasts. Most of that was NBC, because reporter Maggie Vespa offered Armstrong a platform to proclaim, “They need to be investigating Jonathan Ross for the killing of Renee Good, not trying to weaponize their power against nonviolent, peaceful demonstrators.” Armstrong wasn’t asked how disrupting (and basically ending) a church service is “peaceful.”

ABC gave this invasive protest 51 seconds overall in those first three news cycles, and CBS News – the supposedly Trump-friendly network under new boss Bari Weiss – gave it only 14 seconds to that point.

ANTI-ICE PROTESTER WILLIAM KELLY DARES PAM BONDI TO ARREST HIM AFTER MINNESOTA CHURCH DISRUPTION

Overall, the church protest, when it had to be mentioned, was merged into the constant template of “growing protests” and “rising tensions” — in other words, we’re going to play this story as long as we can. The deadly riots after George Floyd’s death were grist for the networks to tout a “racial reckoning” — as if the violent deaths would lead to a positive outcome for the “right side of history.”

ABC’s Matt Rivers squeezed the church protest into a narrative of outrage at Trump, “as tensions rise in Minneapolis, as anti-ICE protesters disrupted this Sunday service demonstrating against one of the pastors who is also the director of an ICE field office, though it’s unclear if he was even there.”

The “public” broadcasters didn’t love this story. “PBS News Hour” offered 14 seconds in passing on Monday and nothing on Tuesday, while they did offer an eight-minute segment with the online headline, “Migrant families allege children held by ICE face unsafe and unsanitary conditions.” On Wednesday, Jan. 21, PBS anchor Geoff Bennett did ask St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her if the protest was appropriate in a “sacred space.” She said no, but rhetorically added schools and hospitals into the “sacred space” category.

ICE REJECTS ‘FALSE NARRATIVE’ ABOUT FAMILY SEPARATION, ASSERTS MINNESOTA CHURCH RIOTERS WERE NOT PEACEFUL

You couldn’t find a story on the church protest (other than one AP dispatch) in multiple searches of NPR’s website. But on Thursday morning, NPR did broadcast three and a half minutes pushing a focus group: “Some voters who backed Trump say ICE is going ‘too far.'”

The Justice Department’s indictment of Armstrong on Thursday offered an exhibit in how much the networks cared about violating the FACE Act. ABC skipped it, pushing instead some fake news about a 5-year-old boy who was “detained by ICE” because his father was an illegal alien. CBS gave it 20 seconds in passing.

NBC’s 27 seconds were mostly Vespa offering the defense lawyer for Armstrong: “Well, now the DOJ announcing arrests of three protesters with charges, including conspiracy to deprive rights. A lawyer for one of them telling NBC News they were arrested doing a peaceful, non-violent protest in a church.” 

It’s not “peaceful” to force an end to a church service with incessant yelling.

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Overall, the church protest, when it had to be mentioned, was merged into the constant template of “growing protests” and “rising tensions” — in other words, we’re going to play this story as long as we can. 

ABC and CBS also skipped it on Friday morning. Vespa’s outrage in her two Friday morning reports came from the left, after Team Trump digitally altered a photo of Armstrong’s arrest to make it look like she was crying after her arrest. In a brief burst at the end of each report, Vespa quoted a White House X account run by Kaelan Dorr announcing, “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”

None of the fragments of stories this church invasion received mentioned the on-scene cheerleading of former CNN host Don Lemon, who came along for the radical ride. Lemon later embarrassed himself by getting into a debate with people on the street, where he insisted misdemeanors weren’t “criminal acts.” The media elites know that Lemon isn’t anyone’s best representative of the leftist viewpoint.

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At this late date, the click-baiters like Lemon aren’t practicing journalism now, even if they protest that they are. What they’re doing is making anti-Trump content for clicks, and if that means egging on a church invasion, then they are proud to be part of “the struggle.”

The media elites think objections to the church invasion are a “Republicans Pounce” story, a right-wing narrative, and that’s exactly why they are prone to avoid spending any serious time on it.  

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson takes jab at Clarence Thomas while defending city’s reparations task force

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday shared a post when he defended the city’s Reparations Task Force and took a sharp jab at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“Judicial Watch is suing the City of Chicago over its reparations task force, saying that it’s discriminatory by race,” a reporter told Johnson at the press conference. 

“When you said it wouldn’t just benefit Blacks, especially foundational Black Americans, doesn’t deviation from recently supported case law to institutions of higher learning, where Clarence Thomas laid out a legislative package, make the program unnecessarily vulnerable, status by race versus status by injured class?”

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR FACES PUSHBACK FROM LYNCHING RESEARCH COMMISSION OVER REPARATIONS STANCE

“Yeah, I’m not aware of anything that Clarence Thomas has ever done that has benefited Black people,” Johnson replied.

“I just told you,” the reporter said.

“I mean, you read something, but there’s no evidence that anything that the Justice has ever done on behalf of the interests of Black people, or even marginalized people in general,” Johnson continued.

“It’s in his concurrent opinion, but anyway,” the reporter responded.

“But as far as any lawsuit against the City of Chicago as it relates to reparations, the whole point of reparations is to repair the harm that was done to Black folks,” Johnson continued. “That’s what it’s designed to do. As you might know, [the] Department of Justice, under the leadership of Donald Trump, is also suing the city of Chicago because of our efforts to right the wrongs of the past, particularly as it relates to descendants of slaves.”

“They can’t have it both ways. They can’t accuse the City of Chicago of focusing solely on Black folks while at the same time trying to make a claim that somehow we’re doing the opposite of that,” he added.

Thomas, who has served on the Supreme Court since 1991 and is the second Black justice to sit on the bench, sided with the 6-3 majority ruling shutting down affirmative action in 2023, saying the Court’s decision “sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, sued Johnson last year for his effort to challenge the Trump administration’s immigration law enforcement activities. 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS HOSTED STATE-FUNDED COMMITTEE MEETING WHERE PROFESSORS ADVOCATED FOR REPARATIONS

In regard to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit over Chicago’s Reparations Task Force, the organization did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. The mayor’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital‘s inquiry about the particular lawsuit either.

In 2024, Johnson signed an Executive Order establishing a Reparations Task Force that addresses “historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors through the form of reparations.”

Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against Evanston, Illinois,‘ reparations program, due to its use of race as an eligibility requirement for the program. The program issues $25,000 direct cash payments to Black residents and descendants of Black residents who lived in Evanston between the years 1919 and 1969. Evanston was the first city in the nation to pass a reparations plan, pledging $10 million over a decade to Black residents.

SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR QUIETLY SIGNS REPARATIONS FUND THAT COULD LEAD TO $5M PAYMENTS PER PERSON

The Supreme Court’s Public Information Office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment regarding Johnson’s remarks about Thomas.

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Trump’s 401(k) plan tries to fix housing crisis. It’s a full-blown retirement disaster

Every few years, Washington comes up with a “creative” solution to an affordability problem that sounds helpful on the surface and quietly creates a much bigger problem underneath. 

The latest example? A proposal tied to President Donald Trump’s housing affordability agenda that would allow Americans to tap their 401(k) retirement savings to fund a down payment on a home. 

I understand the intent. Housing affordability is stretched. Home prices are near all-time highs. Mortgage rates are still hovering around 6%. First-time buyers feel locked out. COVID-19 buyers can’t afford to trade up. Politically, this all sounds like a win. 

Financially, it’s a terrible idea, in my view. This is the classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul and, in this case, Peter is your future self.

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Retirement accounts are not piggy banks 

Your 401(k) was designed for one purpose. To fund decades of income when you can no longer work. It was never meant to double as a short-term housing fund or a policy pressure valve when affordability gets tight. 

When you pull money out early of your 401(k), even if it’s labeled a “loan” or “special access,” three brutally damaging things happen:

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• You permanently shrink your retirement base
• You lose years and sometimes decades of compounding interest
• Most people never fully pay it back

That last point matters more than politicians would like to admit. 

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According to multiple retirement studies, a large percentage of 401(k) loans are never repaid because of job changes, layoffs or life disruptions. What do we think will happen when someone takes a 401(k) distribution for a down payment on a home? The odds are it will never ever get paid back for retirement. 

Compounding is the Eighth Wonder of the World until you interrupt it

Let’s put real numbers behind this. 

If a 35-year-old pulls $50,000 from their 401(k) to buy a home and never replaces it, that single decision could cost them $300,000 to $400,000 by retirement, assuming long-term market averages. That’s just math. 

And here’s the irony about this. The people most likely to use this proposal are the ones who already struggle to save consistently. They don’t have excess cash flow. They don’t max out retirement plans. So, once the money is gone, it’s gone.

TRUMP’S 50-YEAR MORTGAGE JUST INTRODUCES A NEW KIND OF DEBT

Housing risk + retirement risk = double exposure 

Supporters of this idea argue that “homeownership builds wealth.” That’s partially true, but it’s also incomplete in the financial planning equation. 

A home is:

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• Illiquid
• Expensive to maintain and requires regular ongoing investments
• Highly dependent on local markets
• Often leveraged with debt

Retirement accounts, on the other hand, are: 

• Diversified

CONSTRUCTION LABOR CRUNCH DRIVES UP COSTS AND DEEPENS AMERICA’S HOUSING AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

• Liquid when needed in retirement
• Designed to generate income

Using retirement money to buy a home concentrates risk instead of spreading it. You’re tying your future financial security to one asset in one location at one moment in time.

WHITE HOUSE TEASES MAJOR HOUSING AFFORDABILITY PLAN AS PRICES SQUEEZE AMERICANS

This doesn’t fix housing. It masks the real problem 

The truth is uncomfortable right now, but necessary to review. 

Housing isn’t unaffordable because Americans aren’t creative enough with their retirement money. It’s unaffordable because:

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• Supply is constrained
• Affordable housing starts are a decade behind
• Zoning is broken

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• Large institutions are buying up residential homes
• COVID-19 Interest rates reset home prices

Letting people tap 401(k)s doesn’t fix any of that. It simply injects more demand into a broken system, which can push prices higher and reward sellers not buyers.

6 KICK-BUTT FINANCIAL RESOLUTIONS YOU SHOULD MAKE TODAY TO PROTECT TOMORROW

In other words, this proposal could make homes even more expensive while quietly hollowing out retirement security, putting even more pressure on Social Security. 

It’s a shaky foundation 

Policies that trade long-term stability for short-term relief almost always backfire.

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Using retirement money to buy a home concentrates risk instead of spreading it. You’re tying your future financial security to one asset in one location at one moment in time.

We’ve already watched Americans underfund retirement for decades. Encouraging them to drain the one bucket that actually works for them, which is a tax-advantaged long-term, automated saving program, is going to move people backward. 

Homeownership matters.

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Retirement security matters more. 

And no matter how you dress it up, it’s never a good idea to rob Peter to pay Paul, especially when Peter is the older version of you who won’t get a second chance to fix it. 

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SEN JAMES LANKFORD: When we March for Life, we must fight for the Hyde Amendment

This Jan. 23, as we mark the 53rd annual March for Life, we also recognize the 50th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment, which settled in law that American taxpayers do not subsidize elective abortions. Period. The Hyde Amendment is not about if elective abortion should be legal, it’s about who has to pay for it. For five decades, each Congress has voted in favor of the annual appropriation bills to affirm the Hyde Amendment. The citizens of our great nation have strongly held and widely diverse opinions about abortion, but in poll after poll, Americans agree that they should not be forced to pay for someone else’s abortion.

The Hyde Amendment has two clear tenets: federal taxpayers do not pay for abortions or subsidize programs that pay for abortions. Every federal healthcare program has Hyde Amendment protections, including Medicaid, Tricare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Indian Health Services and Medicare, except for one healthcare program: Obamacare.  

The so-called “Affordable Care Act” is the only healthcare plan that circumvents Hyde protections with its notorious “Section 1303” accounting gimmick created when the bill passed 16 years ago. 

Democrats will often say that Obamacare abides by Hyde because Section 1303 requires a “separate payment” of at least a dollar each month for abortion coverage, which they know is an accounting sleight of hand. As soon as the law passed 16 years ago, the Obama administration ruled that “separate” actually meant “together” which allowed one payment to be split into two parts, often paid for by federal tax dollars.

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The millions of people paying zero premiums for Obamacare do not pay an additional dollar for their abortion coverage; it’s included in their taxpayer-subsidized premium tax credit. 

There are now 12 states that will not even allow a healthcare plan to be sold in the state unless it covers surgical and chemical abortion. In those states, every taxpayer is forced to subsidize abortions with their tax dollars and with their monthly premium dollars. Roughly 15 different insurers failed to even itemize dollars associated with abortion coverage on their enrollees’ bills, nor did they separately bill for the abortion premium amount, which is required by law.

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Of course, the biggest evidence that Obamacare does not really have Hyde Amendment protections actually comes from the pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Reproductive Freedom for All. They recently sent a strong letter to all Democratic members of Congress letting them know that they would fight against any member of Congress who adds Hyde protections to the Obamacare tax credits. They know that Obamacare is the only federal healthcare that pays for abortions, and they do not want to lose that revenue stream. 

There is no debate that the cost of healthcare has skyrocketed. Former President Barack Obama’s pledge of a $2,500 savings for all American families in healthcare premiums has never materialized. For years, Republicans have laid out simple strategies to reduce the cost of healthcare, like allowing small businesses to join together into groups, creating subsidized high-risk pools to lower the cost for all health insurance and confronting the pharmacy benefit managers that limit formulary choices and drive up costs for the consumer.

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But, each time we attempt to address healthcare costs, Democrats demand that any deal must include elective abortion coverage, paid for by American taxpayers. That is a non-starter for the millions of Americans that want healthcare to save lives, not take it. We don’t believe that some children are disposable and some children are valuable. We believe all children are valuable. 

Which is why the conversation about the 50-year-old Hyde Amendment matters, because children matter. All of them. We can reduce the cost of healthcare, but to do it, Democrats are going to have to be more flexible on Hyde. 

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The March for Life is proof that life is a gift and truth still moves us

If you watched the Super Bowl last year, you probably remember the Rocket Mortgage commercial that cut through the noise and went straight to the heart. Instead of flash or controversy, it told a quiet story: a family, a home, children growing, ordinary moments that turn out to be anything but. 

For a moment, it almost felt like a pro-life message. 

Of course, it wasn’t. It was an advertisement. But it worked because it tapped into something deep and universal, something every human heart recognizes instinctively. Life, family, love and belonging matter. Life is not a problem to be solved. Life is a gift. 

That simple truth is our theme for this year’s 53rd National March for Life: Life Is a Gift.

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For more than 50 years, Americans have gathered in Washington, D.C., for the world’s largest annual human rights demonstration to affirm a foundational belief: every human life, born and unborn, has inherent dignity and immeasurable worth, and deserves protection and support in our laws, our communities and our families.  

The abortion debate has always been waged on two levels. One is intellectual: facts, science, public policy and law. That level matters. Truth must be defended clearly and honestly. 

And the facts are compelling. Science shows that human life begins at conception. From that first moment, a new human being exists with genetically unique DNA. By six weeks, a heartbeat can be detected. It is unmistakably the child’s, not the mother’s. By 12 weeks, organs have formed, fingerprints are emerging, and babies often suck their thumbs, sometimes favoring one hand over the other. By 15 weeks, science indicates unborn children can feel pain.

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The facts also reveal ugly truths about the abortion industry. Planned Parenthood’s abortion numbers continue to rise even as other health services decline. Today, 97% of pregnant women who enter a Planned Parenthood facility leave no longer pregnant. Chemical abortions now account for more than half of all abortions in the United States, despite mounting evidence that abortion drugs pose serious risks to women’s health. 

A major study found that nearly 11% of women who take mifepristone experience serious or life-threatening complications – a number that’s far higher than what women are often told and that would surely not be tolerated for almost any other type of drug. 

These facts should be shouted from the rooftops. But facts alone do not change a culture. 

Especially in our current moment, when a great deal of debate happens online, asynchronously and impersonally, human beings are often not moved by a set of bullet points. We are moved by encounters with what philosophers call the transcendentals: truth, beauty and goodness. Our minds change and our hearts soften when we see something worth loving and holding onto.

PRO-LIFE ORGANIZATION CALLS ON HHS AND FDA TO SUSPEND ABORTION PILL APPROVAL, TIGHTEN SAFETY RULES

That is why the March for Life continues to endure after so many years. Movements fueled primarily by anger tend to burn out. Anger is not sustainable. But joy is. 

The abortion debate has always been waged on two levels. One is intellectual: facts, science, public policy and law. That level matters. Truth must be defended clearly and honestly. 

Anyone who has attended the March knows this. The face of the March for Life is not rage or resentment, but joy: the singing, the energy, the love for both mother and child. Countless thousands of people, many of them young, standing together in the cold to bear peaceful witness to life.

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That youthful presence is particularly striking at a time when Gen Z pro-life self-identification is rising, and Gen Z’s willingness to accept abortion on demand throughout pregnancy is plummeting, according to Gallup polling from last summer. Across campuses, social media and local communities, a rising generation is engaging this issue with clarity and compassion, unafraid to tell the truth boldly and determined to shape a culture that sees life not as a burden, but as a blessing. 

What ultimately gives the pro-life movement its staying power is that it is not defined by what it rejects, but by what it embraces. At its best, our movement points toward a complete vision of human flourishing: one rooted in love, responsibility and the belief that no life is disposable. A full three quarters of voters – including strong majorities of Democrats, independents and women – support pregnancy centers that offer support before and after birth instead of abortion. That positive witness is what continues to move hearts, long after arguments fade.

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The world will continue to change. Politics will shift. Cultural winds will blow. But the mission of the March for Life remains steadfast: to affirm the priceless value of every human life, to advocate for more protections for the littlest humans, to support women and families, and to bear joyful witness to a truth that never loses its power. 

No matter the circumstances, life is a gift. That truth speaks to the heart of every human person. And it is why we keep on marching for life. 

Johnny can’t read — even in college. I lead a university and it’s terrifying

A stunning report revealed that many university professors now find themselves teaching students who struggle to read, not just to interpret literature or write essays, but to understand basic text on a page. According to Fortune, a growing number of Gen Z students enter college unable to “read effectively,” forcing professors to break down even simple passages line by line.

That trend should alarm every parent, employer and policymaker in this country. It is not just an academic concern. It is a cultural crisis.

At its core, education is the cultivation of the mind. It is the ability to grapple with ideas, wrestle with complexity and communicate meaningfully with others. Those are not optional extras. They are essential for success in the workplace, in civil society and in a free nation.

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As university leaders, we cannot simply diagnose the problem. We must also take responsibility for the role higher education has played in lowering expectations, prioritizing comfort over competence and treating students as consumers instead of future leaders. Universities have spent years chasing satisfaction scores and graduation rates while quietly sacrificing the intellectual foundations that make real formation possible.

What happens when students don’t learn to read deeply? They lose the ability to think deeply.

Reading shapes more than academic skills. It forms attention spans, builds empathy, strengthens discipline and stretches the imagination. These are the very traits that make leadership and community possible. When students are conditioned to skim headlines, scroll social media or rely on AI summaries, they lose not just literacy. They lose the habits that sustain wisdom and maturity.

And employers see the effects. According to surveys cited in the same Fortune report, a significant portion of Gen Z graduates feel unprepared for the workforce. Many cite difficulty with communication, lack of real-world exposure and anxiety over professional expectations. The disconnect between what universities offer and what the marketplace demands is widening.

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That should concern us. Not because young people are inherently incapable. Quite the opposite. They are smart, creative and full of potential. But potential without formation leads to frustration. And that is where too many students find themselves: anxious, underprepared and overpromised.

So where did higher education go wrong?

Part of the problem lies in culture. Nearly half of U.S. adults read no books at all last year, and Gen Z reads fewer than any prior generation. But the problem is also institutional. In the name of flexibility or equity, many universities have quietly lowered standards, cut reading requirements and simplified curriculum to avoid student discomfort.

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This approach may feel compassionate. In reality, it is condescending.

Universities should be leading the way in rebuilding a culture of learning. That begins with restoring the dignity of hard reading, deep thinking and intellectual perseverance. These are not relics of a bygone era. They are prerequisites for leadership, responsibility and growth.

At Southeastern, we form students to read deeply, think critically and lead faithfully. They wrestle with ideas in community and pursue truth through both reason and faith. That is not elitism. It is discipleship. It is preparation for leadership.

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We have built our model on the belief that students rise when we raise the bar, not when we lower it. Our classrooms are grounded in biblical wisdom, academic excellence and a vision of education that forms the whole person: intellectually, spiritually, and vocationally.

This is the kind of education students are craving, whether they realize it yet or not. And it is the kind of leadership American higher education urgently needs.

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We do not have to accept a generation that struggles to read. But we do have to build institutions that expect more, form more and prepare students to lead. Not just in their careers, but in their character.

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Because if we fail to form students with the ability to read, we will fail to form the citizens who preserve freedom, the leaders who pursue justice and the believers who carry truth into every corner of culture.

The stakes are too high to stay silent.

DAVID MARCUS: New York Dems pull dirty districting trick as ‘aw shucks’ Indiana GOP folds

New York City has only one Republican member of Congress, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island, the city’s only red borough, and parts of South Brooklyn that are purple. An absurd and obviously partisan judicial ruling on Wednesday has put the seat at risk.

This isn’t just political hardball, it’s a fastball to the face. But too many Republicans are too “principled,” or too scared, to retaliate.

State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman, who was not only appointed by far-left Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, but once served as her chief of staff, found that the district map, which was signed into law in 2024 by Hochul herself, is suddenly unconstitutional.

Incredibly, Hochul agrees that she and the New York Democrats themselves signed into law an unconstitutional district just over a year ago, and her state government has refused to defend its own map in court.

TRUMP FORCES INDIANA GOP INTO REDISTRICTING REVERSAL IN RACE TO DRAW NEW MAGA MAP

The judge said there was strong evidence of a “racially polarized voting bloc,” as well as “a history of discrimination that impacts current day political participation and representation,” and “that racial appeals are still made in political campaigns today.”

Having lived from 2013 to 2023 in the district, I can tell you this argument is a bag of nonsense, set on fire and left on the doorstep of sanity. It does not remotely represent the reality on the ground, where there are no smoldering racial tensions.

The judge also finds, ludicrously, that residential Staten Island has more in common with the skyscraper-strewn Financial District of Lower Manhattan than the Brooklyn of homes and churches it is literally connected to by the Verrazano Bridge.

REPUBLICANS PUSH BACK OVER ‘FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM’ IN BLOCKBUSTER REDISTRICTING FIGHT

In reality, deceitful Democrats want to swap right-leaning White voters in Bay Ridge with left-leaning White voters in the ritzy FiDi.

This is as blatant as partisan gerrymandering gets, and in corrupt New York state, that is saying a lot.

Democrats will argue that they are just responding to redistricting efforts by the GOP, but the Texas Republicans only started engaging in what the Democrats have done forever.

FEDERAL JUDGE SCORCHES DEMS FOR PANDERING TO LATINOS WITH CALIFORNIA MAP IN FIERY DISSENT

That’s why there are no GOP seats in all of New England composed of states where 45% voted for Trump. Likewise, Illinois, New Mexico and others have nearly no GOP districts.

The response by states like Texas has prompted the Democrats to see if they have left anything on the table anywhere, hence this New York duplicity along with similar plans in Virginia.

The problem for Republican voters, who would love a fair shake, is that states like Indiana still won’t respond. As usual, Dems are united and playing fast-break basketball, while the GOP is taking the “high road” and playing as the Washington Generals.

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We see this as well with the blue slips in the Senate needed for judicial confirmations. Democrats abuse it, and now Trump has filled only 15 out of over 90 US attorney seats. He can’t get anyone confirmed if Democrats can block it.

It’s the same with the filibuster and government shutdowns. They left plays smashmouth, and the GOP just gets played.

Vice President JD Vance has been leading the charge to stiffen the spine of the soft GOP of yesteryear. He called out Indiana state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, and he wasn’t subtle.

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“I’d like to thank (Bray) for not even trying to fight back against this extraordinary Democrat abuse of power. Now the votes of Indiana Republicans will matter far less than the votes of Virginia Democrats. We told you it would happen, and you did nothing,” Vance wrote on X following Virginia’s plan to erase GOP seats.

Where is the lie in this?

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What do Indiana Republicans think the “aw shucks, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” routine is going to achieve? That they can hold their heads up high for two years as a Democrat-controlled House impeaches President Donald Trump two or three more times?

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From the very first time quill met cartography to carve out a Congressional district in the 1780s, the practice has been fraught with politics. It always will be.

But just because Democrats spent recent decades as the side abusing the system the most doesn’t mean Republicans must resign themselves to that stilted status quo.

If sanity prevails in the Empire State, admittedly a big ask, then a federal judge will squash Pearlman’s partisan, and frankly absurd, ruling, keeping the district intact.

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Whether Malliotakis’ district survives as is or not, and don’t count her out either way, Republicans need to fight back with all guns blazing, not with one Hoosier hand tied behind its back.

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Stephen A Smith shreds Newsom for violating ‘America First’ with disparagement of Trump in a foreign country

Commentator Stephen A. Smith tore into California Gov. Gavin Newsom for disparaging President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

On Wednesday’s episode of Smith’s “Straight Shooter” podcast, the host asserted that while he has no problem with Newsom criticizing Trump while on American soil, slamming the president in a foreign country is a completely different story.

“I have no problem with Gavin Newsom being candid and open about his feelings about our president on United States soil. To go over to another country, Switzerland, to go over there and to be in the presence of other European leaders, speaking against the President of the United States — I’m not down with that,” Smith asserted. 

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Smith questioned why Newsom was in Switzerland “speaking negatively about the President of the United States” before playing a clip of the governor criticizing Trump.

The “Straight Shooter” host reiterated that he felt it was unacceptable for an elected U.S. official to come out in opposition to the president while speaking to foreign leaders outside the country.

“Say whatever you want here, as a governor from the opposite side of the aisle of a state in the United States, on American soil — fine. But I’m one of those people: when we go somewhere else, it’s America first,” Smith said.  

While acknowledging that his argument may sound “very simplistic” to some, he argued that “some things are worthy of being simple.”

“I understand you trolling Trump. I understand that you’re aiming to run for the presidency in 2028, but we got problems here in the United States,” he contended. “And don’t tell me they don’t exist in California.”

Smith then pointed to issues impacting California like sanctuary status and affordability.

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“I’ll be damned if affordability ain’t at the top of the list in the state of California! It’s expensive as hell! And a lot of it has happened on Gavin Newsom’s watch,” he railed.

Although critical of Newsom, Smith conceded that he likes the governor “as a person” and believes that the “number one impediment to his governing ability is his heart because he truly cares, and he wants to do right by everybody.”

He added that while he won’t call Newsom out of his name like others do, his decision to disparage Trump in front of the rest of the world was unacceptable.

“You going overseas to do that — that don’t cut the mustard. Can’t do that. I mean, you can, but it’s not good,” he argued. “I got a lot of problems with Donald Trump and a lot of problems with the decisions that he made. I’m not going on foreign soil to do it. I’m not going on a world stage to do it about him.”

NEWSOM TOUTS CALIFORNIA’S NUMEROUS LEGAL FIGHTS WITH TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IN FINAL STATE OF THE STATE

Smith also pointed out that Newsom had been invited onto the show on “numerous occasions” but never accepted the invitation, calling out the governor for declining to do so.

“What the hell you running from me for? I just want to ask questions. I want to give you an opportunity to answer to the people of California and to the American people if you’re going to be a presidential candidate in 2028. Gavin Newsom not appearing on this show doesn’t stop me from talking about him and his record,” he said. “I don’t know all about his record. He does. And he has the platform here anytime he wants to make sure that the record is set straight.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Newsom for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

NEWSOM LASHES OUT AT TRUMP OVER ‘CARNIVAL OF CHAOS’ AMID MINNESOTA ICE SHOOTING FUROR

On Tuesday, Newsom slammed foreign world leaders for “rolling over” when confronted by Trump, declaring he should have brought “kneepads” for foreign dignitaries attending the WEF.

“People are rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders,” Newsom told reporters at the event. “It’s just pathetic.”

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